Our shared silence
by Vofastudum
Summary: She wakes up one morning and everyone is just gone... vanished like they never existed at all... except for him... and in this silent solitude, he's all she has. HG/DM
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Hi and welcome to my story!**

**Before you start let's make one thing clear: I've had a few reades comment my use of ellipses (...) And I wanted to let everyone know I'm aware it's not a grammatically correct way to use them! I've kept it as a matter of style, knowing it might drive readers away. So, I'm sorry if it keeps you from reading and maybe I'll come back to edit the dots away someday. But at the moment the story is as it is and it's not because I've made a mistake with punctuation. To those who can look past that: Happy reading! Let me know what you think!**

**Disclaimer: Anything familiar is not mine! Just playing the part of a puppetmaster!**

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That night, she dreams of the tropic… white sand washed by blue waves and the sun shining brightly from above.

She feels the sun on her skin, the sand on her feet and the waves as they tickle her toes.

But the beach is empty… She's alone… and that loneliness makes her feel… uneasy.

Like there's something lurking behind the palm trees… like someone is watching her… and she has nowhere to hide… like the beauty hides secrets, she doesn't want to unravel.

The moment her eyes fly open she knows there's something wrong… even before opening her curtains, the pressing silence of the room makes her blink one time more that is necessary.

She shoves the curtains aside and… like she suspected, the other beds are empty… curtains drawn and neatly made… like no one has slept in them in weeks.

But she knows it was just a few hours ago, they all went to sleep.

How can it be she did not hear them leave?

She puts on her clothes and makes her way to the common room, only silence on her heels.

The fire crackling on the fireplace, makes her think of her dream… the eerie feeling like she's been watched, when she's sure there's no one here.

But where is everybody?

The corridors are empty too… no usual sounds of students chattering as they make their way to the Great Hall…

And the portraits, those that usually greet them good morning or give other light pleasantries… they're unmoving today…

Is she still dreaming?

But it doesn't feel like it.

The silence of her dreams doesn't hum in her eardrums as this does… She pinches herself, just in case.

But nothing happens.

She steps into the great hall.

The ceiling glisters in the sunrise, but the tables are as empty as the rest of the castle.

Chills run down her spine.

This can't be real… something has happened… it's not possible that everyone has just left and forgotten to take her with them.

A scary thought hits her: What if she's dead?

Or maybe someone has cursed her in some kind of a dream lock?

But why would they do that?

She goes back to the entrance hall and tries to open the doors.

But they won't budge… no matter how she pushes and pulls.

Panic begins to bubble in her when her mind struggles to find a logical answer to what is happening.

Desperately, she sits on the ground and leans her head against the wall.

"Think!" She orders herself, "There must be something you've read about situations like this!"

But nothing comes to mind.

There are time loops… but they usually include people… same thing with going back in time.

Even in her dreams, there should be someone here… no one can curse a dream where you are completely alone. Right?

Mindlock? Does someone want her to go crazy in loneliness?

The scenarios run in her head… but won't make much sense.

She just doesn't understand who would be capable to attack her while she was sleeping in her form… who would want to…?

"Granger?"

She shoots up the floor, almost ready to draw her wand and defend herself.

He stands on the end of the stairs…a familiar scowl on his face… looking at her.

But apparently, he's not going to hex her on sight…so she just glares back.

"Malfoy…"

They stand like that…facing each other from other ends of the entrance hall… silence still weighing down on them…and seconds tick by.

She's not sure what she's supposed to say…

Not even sure what to make of this twist of events… She's not alone after all…

But if her only company is Malfoy… she's not sure if she's relieved or disappointed.

And she can guess he feels the same.

"The dungeons are empty." He finally tells her, matter-of-factly… like testing the ground.

And she thinks this must be the first time the words directed at her don't start with an insult.

So, she nods, "So is Gryffindor… and all the upper corridors."

He lifts an eyebrow… and the sneer she's waiting for still doesn't appear to his face…

"And the hall?"

"That too." She nods and makes a mental note to draw a huge x on the wall of the first ever decent, however short, conversation exchanged between her and Malfoy.

"So, it's just you and me?"

She nods again.

"Fucking, Great!"

And there it is The sneer… the wrinkling of his nose… the despising look on his face she's so used to rising to his face.

And then he has passed her and entered the great hall… all the hope she might get help to solve what's going on leaving the room with him.

But because she doesn't know what else to do… where else to go… she follows him in.

He has sat on the far end of the Slytherin table… and food has appeared before him.

And when she stares at him eating, she realizes her stomach grumbling.

So, she mimics his movement… sits in front of the Gryffindor table and in a moment there's full breakfast ahead of her…

The magic hasn't frozen with the rest of the castle?

Maybe there are house elves still working in the kitchens?

But it's false hope… because after she has eaten, she makes her way to the kitchen and finds it empty.

After that, there's really only one place for her to go: The library.

That's what she does: When in doubt go to the library!

And what else could she do?

If she doesn't know what's going on… how can she fix it?

So, the library is her only hope.

Days start to go by.

She sits in the library in the middle of piles and piles of books, eats her meals in the Great hall and in the evenings collapses to her bed in the empty Gryffindor common room.

As time goes on, days start to blend into each other… and time loses meaning.

She sees him occasionally in the hall, but they don't acknowledge each other.

Whatever he does to spend his days, she doesn't know… or care.

But it gets lonely and tiresome.

Her brain works on overdrive in lack of physical challenge.

Her dreams become nightmares and she wakes, every night, screaming.

The words in the books start to blur together… and she thinks the silence and the loneliness are making her go crazy… little by little, eating her up inside.

After two weeks… that feel like years… she tosses a book aside and screams in frustration.

It's no use!

The books in the Hogwarts library don't hold the answers she needs!

She bangs her head to the hardwood and closes her eyes.

Why her?

What has she done to deserve this?

What is she being punished for?

And what if there's no answer… if she's going to stay in this silent castle for the rest of her life? Only Malfoy as her company?

What if they're just left here, to waste away?

But why? and how? and by whom?

Who would want to punish her and Malfoy?

They have nothing in common… no crimes they'd both have committed…

But like the rest of her questions…these too, are left unanswered… gnawing in her head… making her feel even crazier!

But she can't take anymore reading… so she starts to run.

Every morning before breakfast she runs… up and down the stairs… along the wide corridors… speeds up until she's sweaty and breathless.

The reading becomes easier after that… but it doesn't take away the lack of company… the yearn to talk to someone.

But she's not going to be the first to initiate conversation with Malfoy!

No, because that would mean she'd give him an okay to be a dick…and she'd still search for his company…

She's not that desperate!

Finally, it's him who gives up.

But not the way she wished him to…

About a month into their solitude silence she's walking away from the library one evening when she sees him slip in the corridor of the astronomy tower.

And maybe it's because she's been dying to know how he spends his days, she turns to follow him.

Later, she would think it couldn't be random… that either he wanted her to see him go… or it was faith interfering with their lives…

Because if she hadn't followed… Draco Malfoy would now be dead!

There's no second-guessing in his steps as he walks to the open railing… no doubt, as he climbs over it.

Based on only his movement, she's sure he would have done it… without blinking an eye.

But he doesn't… because when he's standing on the narrow rock, outside the railing of the tower… wind catching his fair hair… She acts, without thinking twice… rushes forward and grabs his hand, that is just about to let go.

"NO!" She screams.

But he's over already… taken the step already…

And then he's hanging in the air… and the only thing between him and his death is her hand gripping his.

He's not that heavy… but she's not that strong either…

But it seems that the reality of the situation has returned his will to live… because he's not trying to make her let go but gripping her hand, like a lifeline… that it is.

She leans further over, making sure she's not in danger falling herself and reaches her other hand for him too.

The only thing in her mind is, that she can't let him go!

It's not completely clear for her how she finally manages to pull him back over the railing, but she does. And they stumble backward, falling to the rock floor, panting hard.

"Are you crazy Malfoy? What were you doing?" She doesn't know why she's so angry… why this makes her feel… so enraged?

He can't just go and kill himself!

Not when she's working all her waking hours on finding a way out of this silent world!

No! He has to be here! So, she knows not all is lost!

"What did it look like I was doing!? Aren't you the clever one!?" He spits back.

But he won't look at her… his eyes are downcast and lip white… and she thinks briefly that maybe nearly falling to his death made him second guess his will to let go of life.

"Well, no!" She tells him sternly and he briefly flickers his steel eyes to her.

"You can't kill yourself!" She cries out more desperately than she intended.

He snorts, but that doesn't stop her, "I'll find a way out of this! I can't have you give up! I'll find a way to fix this, whatever this is. And we'll get home, and everything will be back to normal!"

Home… because she's sure this isn't real Hogwarts… this isn't the castle she calls home but some kind of a projection… an alternate reality… dream…

"And that's better, how?" He growls.

"Everything will be like it used to!" She tells him again.

"Might as well jump again…" He mutters now.

And she has no idea what power possesses her that moment, but she takes his hand.

"No! I already told you! You can't give up! Otherwise…" She pauses, he hasn't withdrawn his hand, "Otherwise, what reason do I have to try and fix this?"

"You Gryffindors always need someone to save, don't you? Why don't you do it for your fucking self?"

he yanks his hand back…

She doesn't have an answer… why doesn't she?

"And tell them what exactly, when you don't return? If you don't return, I'll be in trouble anyway! How does that help me?"

It's a weak argue… but all she can think of at the moment.

He's still not looking at her but stares at the far wall with an unreadable look on his face.

"Fine," He finally spits out, "Let's stay I'll stick around for few more days, what do I get out of it?"

She shrugs, "You could help me find answers…"

He frowns, "You forbid me to die so that I can read books in the pleasure of your company? In what world do you think it would sound like an appealing deal for me?"

None…to be truthful… so she just shrugs.

He rolls his eyes.

"Fine! I don't feel like dying today anymore anyway! So might as well stay for a few more."

He gets up and heads to the door.

"Wait!" She shouts after him, and to her surprise, he actually turns.

"I want your word, you're not going to try and off yourself again! Not in a while at least!" She raises her chin, to appear certain, still sitting on the floor.

"And what good is my Word" he emphasizes, "for you?"

There's really only one answer she can give… but it embarrasses her to even think of it.

"I just don't want to be left alone here…" She whispers, barely audible.

His dark stormy eyes meet hers… and she knows it's a stupid reason… but the thought of being all alone in this huge silent castle terrifies her… even if he's the only choice of company she has…he's better than solitude…

And somehow, he must know how she feels, because after a pause he finally nods briefly.

"You have my word, Granger… to whatever good it is…"

He's already gone when she whispers a silent 'thank you'.


	2. Chapter 2

The first step is him starting to sit in the library.

Not at the same table as her… not talking to her…or even looking at her direction… but staying in the same room nevertheless.

And it does help… Even if they're not talking… After all the silence, she seems to be comforted only by the sound of him breathing.

The sound of his breathing also means he's still alive…still holding on…

He's drinking… she doesn't know where he gets the Firewhiskey, but she rarely sees him without a bottle.

Does it worry her? She thinks of the question one night in her bed… maybe it should… but to be honest… she wouldn't mind a drink every once in a while herself…

Sometimes, when he doesn't notice, she studies him… dark shadows under his eyes, face pale and eyes glued to the text he's reading.

He looks… torn… broken… lost…and tired… and she can't help but wonder if Harry was right after all… if there's really something going on with him… something serious… something dark.

Wasn't that what he said in the night he tried to jump from the tower? That getting back wouldn't be any better?

She always thought she hated him… but now, looking at him, she realizes, she doesn't hate him… she never did… she pities him… and maybe that's even worse…

.

.

.

She takes the next step… because she feels like it might be her turn… and because it has been days, sitting in the same room with him, and he still hasn't insulted her once… Not that they had talked anything else either… but surely he would have already made up something if he felt like it….

So in one evening she walks to his table and slides a glass to him so that it clicks against his bottle.

Slowly, he looks at the glass and then to her…

She just raises an eyebrow… But he gets what she means…

And still… with no insult, he pours the liquid into her class.

"Thanks." She says cheerily, picks the glass up and goes back to her table.

The whiskey burns her throat… but warms her insides too… so she sips it down slowly.

It's not the first time she drinks… but she never was the biggest fan of the haze alcohol gives her… the fuzziness it causes in her brain…

But when he comes to stand by her table and waves the bottle to her, she nods and lets him pour her another glass.

"Never took you for a drinker, Granger." He says so quietly she barely hears.

"Never really knew me, did you Malfoy?" She looks straight at him…

He shrugs, "Never really."

And then he's gone…

She stares after him for a while, before gulping down the whole glass…Realizing he left her the rest of the bottle…

So, she pours another…

That's a huge mistake!

If you've only had a few drinks of wine and a few cocktails in your whole life, it's not wise to move to full glasses of Firewhiskey, gulped down all at once…

She stumbles in the corridors, trying to make her way to her bed.

The world seems to be swimming in a haze… The corridors are suddenly crooked, and she tries to balance herself against the walls.

When the stairway under her feet starts to move and change direction, she stumbles down on the steps and starts to laugh.

After a while, her laugh turns from bright into somewhat maniac… she laughs and then she might be crying…

As the stairway stops, she stumbles up and lies down on her back to the corridor, staring at the rocky ceiling.

It's hopeless… she's not any closer on finding an answer than she was the day this all began…

They're trapped forever!

And the uncontrollable cry starts again… Lying on her back she gulps air and hiccups every now and then.

Maybe they should both just jump.

"Granger? What are you doing?"

She has no idea how he has found her… nor does she really care… he's interrupting her very private desperation moment!

"Go fuck yourself Malfoy!" She spits and starts to laugh again through her tears.

"You're drunk."

"Yeah, so let me be!"

"Maybe you should go to sleep?"

"Or maybe you should piss off!"

Suddenly only him being here makes her irritated.

If it was anyone else, anyone! They'd help each other! She's sure of it! If it was anyone else, he'd help her get through this! Not just sit silently, drinking whiskey all day long!

But this is Draco fucking Malfoy, high and mighty who waits for the mudblood to figure a way out before he kills himself.

Like he's the only one in this world who has problems!

She shoots up, to sit on the ground, looking at him still standing there.

He looks irritated too… what right does he have? He could just go and leave her alone like she asked him to.

"Go to your room, Granger."

"Who are you to tell me, Malfoy? Who are you to order me around? Why is it always about you anyway, huh?"

She wants him to fight her! To yell at her! To anything! Just to get some interaction with another human being! Just to get to use her voice, that has been so quiet for so long she was briefly afraid she'd forget how to talk at all!

"Why is it always about you, Malfoy? Why do you get to decide what you talk and to whom? Why is it your call to choose if you'll sit in my company or not? Why, in this fucking silent hell, is it still you who gets to decide if we talk or not?!" She's yelling at him, not even sure if she's making any sense, "Why can you go and decide to just kill yourself and leave me on my own? Why can you make me fear every fucking day that that's the day you can't stand it anymore and I'll be left alone? Why is it in your hands if I go crazy in this solitude?!"

Tears roll from her eyes, angry and unstoppable…

"I gave you my word!" He spits back, clearly annoyed.

"And what should your word mean to me?! You've never shown me any decency! Why would you care about my plea!"

"I've shown you decency this whole time! Not once have I insulted you."

"And not talking is decency? Fuck you Malfoy!"

She stumbles up and starts to make her way towards where she thinks will be Gryffindor tower.

And in the morning, she wakes up with a massive headache… and she's not in the Gryffindor… she's in the floor of a bathroom.

"Shit…" She mutters and stumbles up.

When she falls to her own bed and buries her head the pillow she swears she's never going to drink whiskey again!

.

.

.

Two days later he joins her in her morning jog… Doesn't talk… doesn't explain but follows on her heels.

And that's probably the point where the world shifts.

Still, they barely talk… she tells him good morning and he nods back… but she feels like he's more here… like she's less alone.

They run together and sit in the library together… there are still days she doesn't see him at all… but then the next morning, he's there again ready to run with her.

Finally, she gives up and starts to tell him her speculations… mostly he just grunts a response, but it does seem to change the way he goes through the books.

"We need to see the books in the teacher's offices." He tells her one day, "There's nothing in Slughorn's, that I checked already."

He's right… so she nods and gets up.

One by one they go through the teacher's offices and take with them the books they think might be useful.

And little by little they also talk more about their findings.

She's not sure how hard he has to concentrate to not to insult her… or sneer at her… but he does make an effort… and she can't help but appreciate it.

But their interaction seems to start things in motion.

In meals, they start to sit on the same table… sometimes in Gryffindor, sometimes in Slytherin.

She even begins to try and make light conversation with him.

Mostly he doesn't say much, but grunts in response so at least she knows he's listening.

But he's better than nothing… and since her drunken outburst, she has decided to make the most of the company she has.

As days go by, she notices he doesn't look quite so sick anymore… the shadows under his eyes have disappeared and his eyes are not that dark anymore.

And sometimes… rarely… but sometimes, she sees a hint of a smile tugging his lips as a response to something she has said.

She doesn't remember ever seeing him genially smile… and somehow, that, even when it's just a hint, makes her insides warmer…

"You know, I've always wanted to see the other houses." She tells him one morning at breakfast.

"What's stopping you?" He mutters, flickering his eyes briefly at her.

She shrugs and then gets up, "Come on then."

"It's your fantasy, not mine."

"And it's no fun doing it alone!"

Reluctantly he follows her anyway.

And finally, they end up having a genially nice afternoon. First trying to the answer a riddle to get into Ravenclaw tower, then trying to guess the password to Hufflepuff and then arguing whether to go in the Gryffindor of Slytherin next.

She leads him up to the Gryffindor tower and lets him look around her home.

He doesn't say a word… but there's no sneer in his face… so she thinks he kind of approves it.

"Different than yours?" She asks after a while.

"Quite…" He mutters, not turning to her but reading the information board next to the fireplace, "you'll see soon enough."

Silence falls once again…

And maybe being on her soil… or maybe the niceness of the afternoon… something makes her ask him the question she's been holding for days.

"How come you haven't insulted me once since we've been here?"

He turns around to look at her.

In the middle of the room of red and gold… he looks somehow different… softer…

"Why would I? There's no audience here…"

She stares at him as the words sink in. Then she shrugs, "Because you hate me? Because you can't stand the sight of me? No audience can change that, can it?"

He looks at her… long and serious… Then slowly he answers, "I don't know you… how can I hate you?"

There's nothing she can answer to that… no coherent thought that comes to her mind.

Doesn't he have enough reasons? Hasn't he voiced them time and time again?

She's a mudblood… filthy, lower, undeserving her magic.

She's a know-it-all… always her hand in the air, thinking she knows best.

She's a Gryffindor… a natural enemy.

She's a stuck-up, holier-than-thou nerd… hasn't he told her that enough of times?

And now he tells her he doesn't know her…

The thoughts run wild in her head when they make their way to the dungeons.

The moment she steps in the Slytherin common room she knows she has misjudged them… that it was wrong to think something down here must be dark and cold and uninviting.

The place in front of her is everything but…

The fire cracks in the fireplace, just like up in Gryffindor… The sofas and chairs are just as inviting.

But it's the hue that makes it so magical.

The soft greenish light, that makes it feel like they're underwater… and the view of the big windows at the furthest wall tell her that it's not just a feeling.

He stands in the middle, studying her as she makes her way to the windows.

"We're under the lake?" She whispers looking out at the fish swimming by and the green weeds flowing with the water.

The room throws her completely off balance… this is not what she thought the Slytherins live in… This is magical… and calm…and beautiful.

She walks around the room, traveling her hand trough velvet fabrics of the furniture.

A poster on the wall with a Slytherin crest stops her.

RULES OF SLYTHERIN, it says with big green letters.

"You have your own rules?" She asks, but he still doesn't answer…

She's about to turn to him… to tell him it's rude not to answer… but the rule number one catches her eyes.

1\. Your house is your family. Family stands united.

Family stands united…

All the times the Slytherins have formed a united front return to her.

Not once has she seen them stand against each other in public… thinking that they all must think alike… all must agree…

"Until today I thought every house had their own rules."

She flinches because he's standing closer than she anticipated… and she thinks of all the times the Gryffindors disagreed with one another… all the times she fought with Ron or even Harry in public…

"Especially Snape was strict with us following the rules… All disagreement was to be dealt inside our house… never in public."

She thinks of her and Harry and Ron…always thinking Snape favored his own house… This means they were right… he did, for the public eye.

"Family stands united…" She whispers silently.

"An old Pureblood code of conduct … we were all already used to it when we first came here…"

She looks at him… and suddenly he looks different… part of it might be this greenish hue of his home in Hogwarts… but there's more.

Suddenly it all makes much more sense.

"You follow it? The families?"

"Of course, we follow it! There is nothing less honorable than betraying your family and legacy!"

She thinks of his words when she goes to sleep that night… thinks of his family… the Malfoys… and Slytherin…

Then she remembers Sirius and Andromeda… where were their families when they should have stood together?

No… it wasn't the case… it was another way around… you either stood with your family… or left it…

Their rules…codes of conduct… the ideas rooted generations deep… makes it easier for maniacs like Voldemort rise to power.

Family stands united… the pureblood parents thought to their children, who then went to school and to Slytherin, that only empowered the message…

What power did children have against Voldemort if their family was a supporter? None…

Because the family stands united!

It's not an excuse… it doesn't take the blame away from people like Draco… but at least now she understands where he's coming from…

Even understands why he might have thought dying was better than the life he lived at home with Voldemort rising…

Now she understands she doesn't know him… not at all… not even the little she thought she did…

And all the reasons she has had, to hate his guts… may not be real at all…


	3. Chapter 3

She tries to start small… asking him seemingly harmless questions to get him to talk.

But talkativeness is not one of his best qualities… come to think of it, she probably knew that already.

And truthfully the most important question, lingering on her lips is: Why did you try to jump?

But she can't ask that if he doesn't feel like he can talk to her… she'll never get any answer if she rushes it.

He'll just get mad… like he does every time she asks a question, he thinks is too personal.

One wrong move and he shuts down and doesn't answer her for the rest of the day.

It frustrates her! But what can she do?

If she gets mad, he'll just draw back and she might never get the chance… he needs to trust her, to talk to her…

And at the moment, it feels like an impossible task to accomplish!

To get them something else to do than reading books she asks him to teach her to play wizarding chess.

She never had the patience to let Harry or Ron teach her… but now, with nothing else to do… well, what's to lose?

And he's a surprisingly good teacher… clear, logical and even patient… so much so, that it actually surprises her.

He leans closer to the board across the table, pointing pieces and explaining the moves. Then he moves his pawns and tells her what he does and why.

And suddenly she doesn't care about the game… she looks at him.

His hair, long overgrown from its usual sleek look, hangs slightly on his eyes when he looks down at the chess… his pale pink lips moving as he speaks and steel grey eyes looming the board, almost tingling.

He's beautiful… the thought hits her out of the blue.

She never thought him like that… she never thought anything of his looks… never looked at him this closely…

He smells like apples and rich shampoo…

And his fingers, moving the pieces, are long and slender, but almost graceful… Her thoughts get all carried away as she thinks of those fingers caressing her cheek… her lips…

"Granger?"

She snaps her head up and shakes it slightly.

He's looking at her with half amused, half frustrated look, "Are you even listening?"

"Yeah! Sorry, just had something on my mind! Please, carry on."

For the rest of the time, she keeps her focus solely on the game.

.

.

.

They break into Dumbledore's office.

It's as silent as the rest of the castle.

No Fawkes and the portraits of old headmasters are empty.

Soon they also find out, that Dumbledore doesn't have any books in his office.

"How is it possible?" She asks, banging close another useless drawer, "It's like someone has taken everything that might be valuable for us!"

Despite their best efforts, they find nothing.

Silently they make their way to the Great Hall to dinner.

The look in his face is dark… and she feels like he's not in the mood for talking today.

Secretly she watches him pushing the food on his plate, staring gloomily ahead… It makes her feel uneasy… like she should do or say something to make him feel better… to not lose all hope.

Because if he lost all hope… they'd both be doomed.

In this silence, she needs him sane!

"Where should we look next?" She asks.

He doesn't answer or look at her, just carries on pushing his food.

"I thought maybe…"

"STOP!"

The glass of pumpkin juice shatters as he throws it to the ground.

"Draco…" She says quietly…soothingly…

"Fuck it! It's useless, Granger! Utterly useless! We've been drowning ourselves in every fucking book we can find from this stupid castle and none of them takes us any closer to… anything! We're never going to get out of this!"

She's staring at him… not sure what she should say… because what he's saying is not completely untrue.

It's been weeks…and they haven't found anything.

But surely, they can't just give up!?

"Then what do you suggest we do, Malfoy?" She asks and the words are harsher than she meant them to be.

"How would I know!? You're the one who stopped me from ending this in the first place!"

She can't believe him!

So now it's her fault?! Like she owes him answers because she wouldn't let him jump!

"So, your suggestion is to just end it? Why don't we both jump, huh? Is that what you're saying?" She has stood up and pushed her fingers to fists.

He doesn't answer, just glares at her.

"I can't Draco!" She finally says pleadingly, "I can't just give up and jump off the tower! I'm not ready to! Somehow, we got here, so there has to be a way out too!"

"And what if there isn't? What if we're like… like lost men in the desert… running after a source of water that keeps getting further and further, because it's just a product of their imagination?"

"Not all is lost!" She feels like almost begging him, "We have a place to live and food and books… and…" She pauses, "each other."

He rolls his eyes slightly, but she can see his anger subduing a little.

She sits back down and studies him for a moment, "Tell you what, let's forget it for a while. We have all the facilities to do whatever we want. So why don't we find something else to spend our times with? For example, I think I need to improve in potions… and you're the best in our class… so…"

His eyes flicker to hers when he obviously tries to make out if she's serious.

Well, studying potions maybe doesn't meet the criteria of being: Whatever they want… but it's something…

After a while he shrugs, "Fine… it's not like I don't need tutoring in some subjects too… and since you're here…"

She nods, "So how about: We start to study like Hogwarts is still on? Think of something else than getting out for a while?"

He sighs, "Fine."

.

.

.

Studying with him works better than asking questions.

He's still snarky and doesn't much like her correcting him… but he grits his teeth and they actually prove to be useful to each other.

He can teach her things she can't read from books… and she can teach him things he's too lazy to read.

And working with him teaches her much more about him than his answers ever could.

He's a perfectionist… but also arrogant with his magic… not knowing something, or not getting something right in the first try frustrates him immensely.

He's clever and quick… she's used to explaining things thoroughly to Harry and Ron, but she doesn't need to do that with him… he can pick up her words and put two and two together with such a speed it sometimes almost leaves her gaping him in surprise.

But he's lazy… and puts too much faith in his long experience with magic… that's probably why she beats his grades every year.

As a teacher, he's actually quite good… like when he was teaching her to play chess… he has this logic in him… and when he gives her advice, he's patient… and she finds herself thinking it's a pity this quality only comes out in a situation like this.

Sometimes, like in the night, he taught her chess, she finds herself forgetting his words and just looking at him.

The concentrated look on his face… and the certainty, in which he talks… The way he seems to know exactly what he's doing…

The sight of him like this stirs weird feelings inside of her… feelings she can't quite put names to.

And the times he manages something… like a perfect potion or a clever spell… he smiles.

A smile that warms his face… make his grey eyes sparkle in silver hue…

And even if the smile is never directed at her… it seems to make her warmer… and usually, she smiles with him… even if it's never directed straight to him.

.

.

.

On their free time… when they're not studying, they usually play chess or some other game… he even let her teach him regular muggle card games… and now plays them with her, no problem.

Every morning they still run… and as a new habit, even when they are doing something solitary, like reading a book, they still do it in the same common room.

Practically, the only time she spends without him is when they sleep. He, in his dorm in the dungeons and her in the tower.

She gets used to him… and starts to think of him as… if not a friend… then at least an ally.

And maybe he thinks the same because one day he takes her to the room of requirement and shows her the vanishing cabinet.

The huge dark cabinet standing in the middle of the room… and in this silence, only its existence feels ominous.

"I don't know if it even could work here… but it's broken in real life too." He tells her quietly.

She tries to do the math… count two and two together to figure out what he's trying to tell by showing her this.

"What does it do?" She asks, hoping it's a safe question.

"It has a pair. When they work correctly you could put something in it here and it'll soon appear to the other side."

"Like a teleport?"

"What?"

She shakes her head, "Never mind."

She rounds the dark object… and then she suddenly knows what it means… and the moment she knows, she wishes he hadn't told her… because that's not information she can keep to herself if they ever get back…

"Does it mean, that if this works, you could smuggle things…or people, in and out of Hogwarts through it?"

She fears the answer as she looks at him… but more frightening is his silence…

He just stares at the cabinet… and the look on his face… its's the same as in the first days here… torn and lost.

"Draco…" She touches his arm lightly, "Is this the reason you tried to jump?"

His eyes turn to her briefly… then she looks at his face turning to stone, "I should never have shown you this."

And he storms off.

Briefly, she thinks of running after him… stopping him and demanding answers.

But he showed her this on his own… because maybe he had come to a conclusion, he could trust her… but maybe it was just too much too soon… maybe she should give him time.

But he's not at dinner… and doesn't come to run with her in the morning.

That's when she starts to worry.

What if it was too much?

What if it threw him off balance again?

What if he has already jumped?

She can't finish her run… not with the image of him bloody on the stony yard sticking in her head.

Instead, she climbs to the Astronomy tower… to her relief, there's nothing to indicate he had jumped.

So down to the dungeons she goes… and realizes she should have come sooner when she enters Slytherin.

The chairs look like they've been thrown across the room… there are pieces of broken glass on the floor next to the fireplace… tables are pushed over… and the Slytherin rules lie on the floor, torn to pieces by angry hands.

'Family stands united'… The words stare at her from a shred on the ground.

"Draco?" She calls softly… but gets no answer.

After listening for a while, hearing only silence, she makes her way to the dorm corridors.

She's not sure which of the rooms is his… but she calls for him and hopes he gets tired of her and answers finally.

It actually doesn't take so long for him to yank his door open and appear before her to the corridor.

His hair is a mess like he's been tearing at it, his eyes red and face twisted… to be honest, he looks a little mad.

Now that he's here, she doesn't know what to say to him…

"What?" He spits, voice harsh, "Came to lecture me?"

"No…" She keeps her voice low and calm, "I came to see you're okay."

"Well, I'm not! So, don't bother!"

He turns to slam the door, but her hand shoots forward to stop him.

"Draco… please…" She knows she maybe sounds pathetic but doesn't care, "Let me help you."

When he turns to look at her, he doesn't look desperate anymore, but dark and dangerous.

"Stay away from me, Granger." Even his voice resonates the look on him.

Boldly she grabs his arm, "NO!"

Briefly stunned by her actions, or words, he looks at her hand on his and forgets to fight back.

That's her chance!

"No! I won't stay away from you! Not here, not now! We're in this together! There's no one else! Neither of us can manage this alone so I'm not going to let you isolate yourself from me! Whatever we are outside of this place, I don't care! Because here, you're all I have! And no matter how much you might despise the idea, but I need you! And you need me! We need each other to keep going, to stay sane, to have any hope to stay alive long enough to find a way out of here!" She takes a deep breath, "If you want me to, I'll make a deal with you that everything that happens here stays inside of these walls! Everything we talk here can stay here… because I need you around! Please, don't shut me out! Please, because I can't stand the silence alone!"

He's staring at her… and she's still holding his arm, looking straight into his eyes, "Family stands united! And here, in this silent limbo, I'm the only family you've got!"


	4. Chapter 4

If she thought, he was going to start to open up to her just like that… she was wrong.

At least he doesn't lock himself in the dorm…

The next morning, he runs so fast and so angry she has to make extra effort to keep up… then he follows their routine and barely talks to her.

But she waits… only him staying with her, not isolating himself means he listened to what she said… at least to some degree… so she waits.

It takes two days… and then his façade cracks… he cracks…

She's reading a book in Slytherin common room and he's sitting on the sofa staring at the fire… and then he finally talks.

"Stopping me from jumping… it's only postponing the inevitable." He says silently, still staring at the flames.

She just waits for him to continue.

"The rule… the first, most important rule… the one we should never break… about family… it's going to get me killed."

Slowly… because she doesn't have words… she gets up and goes to sit next to him.

In the firelight, she can't see any trace of her schoolyard bully… but a lonely, broken boy.

She wants to comfort him… but at the same time, she's scared to break the spell… afraid that if she speaks up, he'll shut his mouth and turn inside himself again.

Minutes go by… and the longer she waits, the harder she feels a cold hand squeezing around her heart… because the more she thinks of it… the more certain she is…

Harry was right all along.

After what feels like hours, but might have been just a few minutes, she lifts her hand and puts it on his wrist… to a spot, where she's almost certain, he hides a secret that's slowly killing him inside.

He flinches but doesn't pull away.

"What is it you're supposed to do?" She whispers.

And he finally turns to look at her… and his eyes look like Harry's do when he's sure this is the day he dies.

"Repair the cabinet?" She's still gripping his arm…

He nods slowly, "That too."

"And?" She shouldn't sound so desperate… when she hears how small her voice comes out, she wants to kick herself.

He looks down… hanging his head… and because she fears he's done talking, she lets go of his arm, puts her palms on both sides of his face and forces him look at her.

This is the time she's brave… no matter how the answer scares her… so she collects herself, "Tell me!"

The words come out as a mumble, but he might as well have shouted them to her face… because they're so much worse than she could ever think: "Kill Dumbledore."

The world freezes… like the welcoming green warmness turns into ice around them…

She was right: this is no secret she can keep if they're ever going to get back to the others… but she promised him… that's why he's even telling her this.

She drops her hands from his face… and does the only thing she can think of doing… puts her arms around him and pulls him to her.

He trembles against her… and she's not sure if he feels the ice too, or if he's really crying…

No words… nothing she can say to comfort him… nothing…

But she told him, like his own rule states: Family stands united, and he's her only family here.

So, she holds him… long, long… they sit… her hands around him and him leaning to her shoulder… saying nothing.

Weeks… months ago… before all this… she might have… probably would have… thought that he has taken the mark for selfish reasons… for power and influence...

Now, knowing all she knows… she doesn't believe he really had any say to it himself.

When he pulls away, she looks at him seriously.

"There's one thing we need to make clear." She tells him… because if they are going to be on the same side…if she's really going to help him… she needs to make something clear.

She takes his hand and bares his arm… the mark stares at her, dark, ugly and almost accusing… like it's screaming: Mudblood!

He tries to cover it, but she won't let him.

"Is this here, because you believe what it stands for? If you kill Dumbledore, is it because you want Voldemort to win?"

"No!" He tells her before she gets to finish the sentence, "You don't know what it's like! This," He maneuvers to the tattoo, "This is a punishment, for my father's mistakes… all of this… He doesn't expect me to succeed… and then he's going to kill me… and her…" The last words disappear as his voice cracks.

She asks, just to be sure: "Who?"

"Mother"

The pain in his eyes is unlike she's ever seen… and it makes her feel she knows nothing of hardship… nothing of making decisions when the options are: bad or worse.

But there's one more thing she needs to ask, "What about muggle-borns? about me? am I still lower? undeserving my magic?"

"I've studied with you for six years… I know you deserve all the magic you have! About blood… I have no idea what to believe… I never had to question it before."

At least he's honest.

That's all she can ask of him at the moment…. so, she takes his sleeve and pulls it back down to cover the mark.

Then she puts her palm on his cheek, "Draco, not all is lost. We'll figure something out."

He shakes his head slightly, "There's no way… I've…"

"There has to be! And I don't care if you think you've thought of everything. It was before I was on your side. And I'm not used to giving up!"

When his eyes meet hers, she knows that she lied to him for a second time: no matter what happens here after this, if they get back, it'll never be the same again! It'll never be like this never happened.

.

.

.

That night, she sleeps in the Slytherin dorm, in a bed that might have belonged to Pansy Parkinson, or Millicent Bulstrode and her cat… or any other Slytherin girls.

It's a foreign bed…and she doesn't much like it… but she couldn't leave him alone… even if he seemed to pull himself back together… she still thought it's better she stays closer… not too close… but only a few doors away.

But she can't sleep… the look in his eyes haunts her… and so do her own prejudices from before.

They used to blame him… think he's foul and loathsome… and what reason they had to think otherwise? He was a rude bully… but he's also just a boy… in an impossible situation… and no one to help him out of it.

She has no idea how she can help… how should they proceed…

For the next days, they act like the whole opening up part never happened… although she sees the change in him… like the mask he works so hard to keep up has slipped a little.

In their morning run, he makes her race him… they speed along the corridors until they're both breathless… and when he's the first the reach the bottom of the last stairs he turns to her lifting his hands up cheering.

"I win!"

She's out of breath and sweaty… but can't help the smile his actions get out of her.

"I just didn't want to watch you sulking all day if you lost!" She tells him, laugh in her voice.

He turns to her, eyes sparkling… looking nothing like the Draco Malfoy she thought she knew… and then he laughs out loud taking a hold of her shoulder.

Somehow his touch sends tingles down from the point where his hand rests to her whole body… she freezes… his eyes meet hers and laughter dies on his lips.

It might be seconds or minutes or just a brief flash, but it feels like a long time… they stand there, looking at each other, panting slightly, his laughter still echoing in the walls around.

It's like someone pushed pause… like there's only his eyes, looking at her…

She feels like she can't quite catch her breath… and a flock of butterflies erupts in her stomach.

This is Draco Malfoy… she tries to think… but the thought does not register in her brain in a way it should.

He's the one to break the spell, "I'm starving, come on!"

And as he turns to the Great Hall, she bursts out laughing… because she knows only one person who can break a moment with such a comment… and it's definitely not Draco Malfoy.

"Do you have any idea how much you sounded like Ron, just there?" She laughs unable to contain herself.

He flips back to her, "Fuck!"

She laughs harder… because he can't even argue!

"I blame you!" He shrugs and then goes to the hall.

"Who are you and what did you do to Draco Malfoy?" She yells after him, "He would have hexed me already!"

Then she follows him.

The light mood stays for the rest of the day… but she tries not to catch his eyes anymore… because she's not ready to deal with the feelings they stirred in her in the morning.

.

.

.

"Come on, Granger! Live a little!" He tells her teasingly as she looks at him with hands on her hips, trying not to smile.

The transformation he has gone through these few weeks is unbelievable.

They still haven't talked about his mark or task since the night she found out… but it seems her knowing his secrets and not despising him for it, has made him loosen up around her.

Or maybe it's the time they've spent together… you can't really be around someone almost 24/7 and not get used to them.

And this lighter, more relaxed Draco Malfoy… is quite good company… to be honest.

Now he wants to go swimming in perfects bathroom.

"You've been there before! What do you need me for?" She tells him rolling her eyes…

Somehow being half naked around him makes her feel slightly uncomfortable.

"I want to see what water does to that disaster of a hair you've got!"

She rolls her eyes, "Of course, you do."

But that's where she finds herself anyway: in her bikini entering the bathroom.

Draco is already there, letting out pink bubbles from one of the tabs.

Don't look! She tries to tell herself… and for the love of God, don't stare!

She tries to look anywhere but his bare chest… acts like she's never seen anything so exciting as the empty frame of a painting on the wall.

Hopes he lets out bubbles that will cover them in the water.

"Granger, Catch!"

He throws a ball at her and she needs to turn around to prevent it from hitting her head… and to do that, she needs to look at him.

Like she anticipated he is fit… after all, he did play quidditch and he does run with her every morning.

But god, God his body is flawless! Lean and strong and white as a marble statue.

The ball hits her head anyway.

She's so much in trouble!

But she tries hard not to think of it… and underwater, it's easier… at least she doesn't have to look at his muscles moving….

Tossing the ball back and forth makes her loosen up… and that's what she shouldn't be doing.

Because befpre long she finds herself being splashed soaking wet by him.

"I wanted to see the hair!" He laughs.

"You bastard!" She yells trying to get her wet hair off her face.

Then she lunges forward and attacks him with the splash of her own.

But after a while of splashing and laughing so hard she thinks she might drown… it happens.

She finds herself caged between the pool wall and his arms.

Her eyes catch him and he has gone serious… paralyzing her with his gaze.

He's so close… his naked chest so close to her she can almost feel it against her body…

She thinks she has never seen anyone look quite so…purely beautiful… his eyes are dark, pupils dilated, lips slightly parted as he looks down at her.

Her gaze flicks down from his eyes and she can see his Adam's apple pop as he swallows hard.

It's like the air and the water around them has electrified… and now sizzling with energy… Like his body is radiating it… pulling her to him like a magnet.

She doesn't remember how to breathe… never in her life has she been in a situation so charged as this…

So, she does the only thing she can think of doing before something happens…something they'll probably both regret…

She escapes… ducks under his arm and up from the pool.

"I think I'm done swimming." She tells him wrapping the towel around her and running out the door.

"Hermione!"

She hears him yell after her as the door swings shut… but she's already going… running with bare feet, leaving a wet trail behind her.

She needs to get away! Needs to put as much distance between them as she can!

Halfway up the corridors, she realizes her breath is heavy and shallow… and she has to slow down…

Just when she reaches the empty frame where the fat lady usually sits… he catches up with her.

Grabbing her arm and spinning her around to face him.

He has run… she can see it… towel tossed across his shoulder, he now looks at her, pale cheeks slightly pink from rushing after her.

"Hermione…" He says again… and it feels like him, speaking her name, stirs something from inside of her.

It's just the solitude… she tries to think, avoiding his eyes… it's just the situation.

So, she shakes her head and whispers a silent, "Don't" That sounds like she's pleading him.

But his body… his hard, perfect body collides her… and then his lips are on hers.

He's kissing her… and her brain can't find a reason to fight it… so her body responds to him, immediately and surely.

He groans against her mouth and backs her up against the wall.

If she ever thought what it would be like to kiss Draco Malfoy… she never anticipated this…

He's ice and fire… hot and cold… soft and demanding… she feels overwhelmed.

She has kissed only a handful of boys before… but none of them, none! Compare to what it's like to kiss him… She's breathless and mindless and helplessly in his mercy… and it doesn't bother her one bit.

He kisses her neck and his hands slide on her bare sides setting her on fire on their way.

He bites a spot just under her jawline and she moans… a soft whimpering sound leaving her lips… some other time it might embarrass her to sound so helplessly needy… but she doesn't care now… so she lifts her own hands to run them down his abdominal… to feel him under her fingertips… then she tangles the other hand in his hair and yanks him forward to be closer…

The world blurs around them.

But it ends too soon… he takes a step back and studies her for a while.

She tries to draw breath… to comprehend what is happening… when he smirks… actually smirks!

His trademark smirk she thinks she hasn't seen in a long time…

"Goodnight Granger." He tells her and casually walks away leaving her dumbfounded standing against the wall, the traces of his lips still burning her skin.

"Good night?!" She yells after him when she finally finds her voice, even though he's probably out of the hearing range already… "Good night!? After that? Really?!"

But she's definitely not going to run after him! So she picks up the towel she doesn't remember dropping and steps inside of the common room fuming, frustrated and confused!


	5. Chapter 5

The next morning she runs from him… cowardly… but after laying awake half the night, trying to think rationally and to stop her thoughts constantly flickering back to his lips on hers, his body pressing her against the wall… and the other half, dreaming of water and dark marks and naked bodies… she can't face him… can't take whatever must be coming.

But she hears him… running after her… because of course, this is not a morning he's going to skip the morning run.

He doesn't call for her… but she hears him breathing… ragged hard breaths, that make her think other things he might be doing breathing like that.

She speeds up… trying to outrun her wild thoughts... but the speed only makes them go wilder.

So, she stops…and he almost crashes into her as she spins around to face him.

He's sweaty and out of breath and today, his eyes are frustrated.

"No." She tells him.

He lifts an eyebrow.

"I'm not going to do this! I'm not going to spend all my time being awkward and on the edge with you!"

He opens his mouth to speak but she stops him, "I'm not going to listen to excuses how it's about this solitude messing with our heads! Or any other blame of ill judgment!"

"Granger…"

But she carries on, "We have just started to get along! I'm not going to give you the satisfaction of telling me how we should stay away from each other, because you were the one who followed me…"

"HERMIONE!" He looks irritated as he takes a step closer.

"DON'T invade my space!" She yells, "I can't think when you're that close!"

The moment the words leave her lips she realizes what she's saying.

"Then tell me, how do I get you to shut up!?" He answers with a similar volume.

She snaps her mouth shut.

"I was never going to say any of those things you tried to put in my mouth." He tells her firmly, still invading her space.

She glares at him.

"What's a little kissing?" He asks then shrugging, "You didn't seem to mind..." He looks at her suggestively, "and there's no one else here… no audience… no need to define… no need to explain."

How she hates his smug certainty!

She wants to tell him she doesn't do things like that… but her eyes are fixated on his moving lips.

He steps closer and she needs to close her eyes to gather her thoughts.

"There's no one watching." He whispers close to her ear and makes chills run down her whole body.

No one watching… no need to explain…

But she's not used to being irresponsible like that…

His hand caresses her arm… lightly… she trembles…

"Why?" She manages to get out, keeping her eyes shut.

She can't look at him now.

He laughs a little, "why not?"

"I'm a mudblood."

His hand grips his arm now, "Who's defining?"

"You?"

"So, it's in my hands?"

She won't dare to look at him… the ghost of his kisses from last night still lingers on her lips… and she already knows she's lost this game… if she refuses him now, she has to go back to avoiding him… because how can she stay away from something so tempting?

No one's watching… Ron and Harry will never know… Ron… Ron will never know…

"You're not… and if you want me to define…Then you're my mudblood." She can feel his lips move close to her mouth…

Remotely she knows his words should offend her… but spoken in almost sinful tone… offended is not how she's feeling at the moment.

"I swear…" She forces the words out, "If this is some sick joke you're playing on me, I'll hex your balls off!"

"No doubt…" He murmurs and then his lips are back on hers… salty from sweat and all-consuming.

.

.

.

She can't quite define when the silence stopped bothering her… when it turned from threatening to welcoming?

Maybe it was when they stopped thinking they should get out… or maybe when they decided to make the most of it…

Maybe when it turned from prison to freedom.

Because when there's no one around… no one looks at them disapprovingly… no one comes to tell them it's prohibited to drink whiskey on school grounds… no one tells them they should keep it quiet in the library and not yell information across shelves to one another… no one questions her motives of helping him research the vanishing cabinet… no one comes to tell her she's franchising with the enemy… no one looks at her with disappointment when she kisses him in the hallway…

This silence gives them freedom… freedom that might not be even possible anywhere other than here.

And to be completely honest… they kind of deliberately forget to attempt to find a way out of there.

She has found a way to him… it's his eyes and lips and hands… his arms around her… and his body pressed against her…

When her lips are on his… there's no doubt they understand each other… that they make sense… that they fit.

And she doesn't have to hide it… doesn't have to question it… doesn't have to second guess… because why should she?

He's all she has… and somehow that doesn't bother her anymore.

One night, they're sitting in the library… he's reading a book, sleeves rolled and his dark mark clearly visible.

He doesn't hide it anymore… she thinks he doesn't even think much of it these days… because there's nothing to remind him what it indicates…

But today… she wants to talk about it.

So, she takes his hand… and travels her index finger along the lines.

He looks at her questioningly.

"Did it hurt?" She asks, not looking at him, but at the brand.

"like hell."

Then she raises her eyes, "Do your friends…?"

He's shaking his head, "They don't normally mark underaged…"

"Would you have taken it… if you had a choice?"

He's silent for a while… and she knows it's a dangerous topic.

But she's Hermione Granger… she can't stay ignorant forever.

"Probably… for my family and for loyalty to my house… maybe even for what it stands for… once…"

"But not anymore?"

She wants to close her eyes and pray the answer is no.

"I'm not a hero,." He tells her, refusing to meet her eyes.

"But you're not a villain either… not a killer…not a death eater…"

"How do you know?"

She leans closer to him… "We've been here for months, Draco… even you can't put on a show for that long."

"You're too pure for your own good, Granger." He whispers.

"Hermione." She tells him.

"Huh?"

"That's my name."

"Still, too pure for your own good."

"Nothing pure in good observation." She smirks slightly.

Silence falls… then she continues, "I just… I guess all I want to know is that I won't have to fight you… if we ever get out of here."

He's looking at her… only inches from her face… "You always fight me."

"You know what I mean." She bores her eyes into his.

He puts his hand on the side of her face, "No."

And then his hands are in her hair… and she's leaning onto him.

Briefly, she wonders if she should have fought more… not give in so easily…

But his lips are intoxicating… and somehow, she believes his no means that she doesn't have to fight him… not now not in the future.

He pulls her to his lap, and she straddles him… fisting her own fingers into his hair.

She could never get enough of kissing him… it's exhilarating and igniting… like she never knows what to expect of him… sometimes he's rough and possessive, almost bruising… and then other times… tender and sweet… sometimes he takes the lead… and then he doesn't, letting her guide… but in every action, he gives the impression he knows exactly what he's doing.

She's not experienced… and if she paused to think about it, she doesn't even know what she's doing… but her body does.

Like now as she's grinding her hips against him, making him groan against her mouth.

His hands are gripping her bottom and he pulls her closer… his movement becoming more feverish.

And she's burning up… needing… wanting… but it's her brain that still stops her when his hands find the clasp of her bra… not yet…

So, like so many times before she stops him… and he doesn't protest… never does… but she can feel the frustration…and his unfulfilled desire pressing against her…

She's not even sure why she still refuses it go further than heavy snogging… maybe she is a prude…

Or a coward…

It's the doubt… the feeling he has done this a million times before, and she hasn't.

She doesn't want to seem like she doesn't know what she's doing… but the books can't teach her this… so she is in a roadblock.

And she thinks it frustrates her more than it does him, to be honest.

She doesn't want to be some blushing unsure virgin for him… she wants to be bold and experienced and certain…

"Come sleep in my bed." He whispers against her neck because despite the halt she's still on his lap.

She's about to shake her head… but then again… he does let her set the rules.

"Just sleep?" She leans further to look at him.

"If that's what you want."

"Okay." She says and gets up pulling him with her… but he's not done yet, because he grips her from behind, pulling her against his hard chest and speaks in her hair, "One day, I'm going to take you here… between the shelves… you can count on that."

Chills run through her and all she wants to do is to throw her insecurities into the trash, invade his lips and tell him that fuck it, let's do it now!

But she doesn't.

Just laughs and leads him out the library.

.

.

.

She doesn't know why they kept sleeping alone for so long… why they kept sleeping in different dorms for so long… why did she waste precious time when she could have slept here, wrapped around his warmth the whole time?!

But that's how they sleep now… arms and legs tangled around each other… and maybe she was a fool to deny him anything because this feels more intimate than any sex could be.

When they slept separately, she could fool herself it's not that serious… but this… this makes it all feel like they're… almost lovers.

And it doesn't get better… because waking up in the morning light, looking at his sleep-mussed hair… makes her feel warm and soft and mushy… like it's more than the situation driving them together.

He doesn't seem to care though.

She's not sure if she should be bothered or relieved how at ease, he handles everything… like it's nothing short business as usual…. when if you stopped to think about it, it was anything but.

But it's not for too long before she, too, gets over herself.

Then one night she wakes up to a nightmare that makes her shoot up in the bed… and finds him gone.

It's usually him who has nightmares and those nights she soothes him, tells him, it's just a dream and holds him close until they both fall back to sleep.

But now, when she needs him to do the same… he's gone.

She stands up and listens…. but hears nothing.

"Draco?" Her voice echoes in the empty dorm and briefly, she wonders if she didn't wake up at all.

In her nightgown, she walks to the common room.

Everything is eerie silent… and there's just once she has felt the same: when she first woke up here.

What if he's gone?

If she's left alone?

She's alone! In this silent castle! He has been taken away and she's left alone.

"DRACO!"

She half walks, half runs through the corridors, not even knowing where she's going.

There's no rational thought in her brain… only this overpowering dread.

She screams his name so long her voice goes harsh… and only silence answers her.

Tears run freely to her cheeks and the cold floor feels like it's burning her bare feet.

He's nowhere… there's no reason he would leave and wander somewhere without making sure she knew where he was going…

He's gone!

This can't be happening!

She's going to die here! First, go mad and then die… alone.

That stops her.

No! She's not going to be left here alone forever… she has a way to make sure of it! A way he once showed her!

And just like that panic disappears.

She turns with certainty in her steps and starts to make her way up…

up to the astronomy tower.


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: Sorry about the cliffhanger, but it was just too juicy to miss! Hah! Anyway, here's the next chapter full of fluff to make up to it! I'm so grateful for all your comments and support! Thank you, thank you, thank you! **

* * *

When she gets to the stairs the plan is clear in her head: She won't stop, just climb up, straight to the railing and down to oblivion.

And then she doesn't have to listen to this fucking silence anymore.

But as soon as she enters the tower, she forgets she ever made any plans.

Instead, she bursts into tears again… and before she really understands what's happening, she has fallen to the floor, sobs wracking through her body and his arms are around her.

"What's the matter, what happened?" He tries to ask but she can't get words out.

She just clings to him, holds onto the front of his shirt like he might slip away if she lets go, trying to draw breath.

"Are you hurt?" He tries to get her to let go so that he can look at her.

But she doesn't let him.

After five minutes or so, she's finally calm enough to get out words.

"I woke up, and you weren't there…" She gulps, "I thought you were gone, I… I decided I might as well jump." The last words fade.

"No!" He grips her shoulders almost painfully, "You can't give up! No matter what happens to me!"

She just shakes her head, tears falling, "The silence drives me crazy."

He pulls her close again, "Don't worry, if it's up to me I'm not going anywhere."

When she has calmed down and they're up from the floor she finally manages to think and talk coherently, "Why are you here? You can't just leave like that!" Actually, him, leaving her alone like that, makes her a little angry now.

"Couldn't sleep…" he answers but she can hear it's not just that, so she waits.

"The mark… it aches sometimes." He mutters finally.

Of course… when he says it, she feels stupid. No matter how they pretend the past doesn't matter here… his past… present… future… never leaves him alone. There's a mark in his hand that reminds him, even when he tries to act like he has forgotten about it almost completely.

"I'm sorry, I didn't think you'd notice."

She looks at him with surprise and nods briefly.

"Come on." He pulls her back against him and just holds her, resting his chin to her hair.

And she puts her own arms around him… and breathes him in.

Maybe she should be angrier that he didn't think of her when he left… but she can't find it in her…

For a moment she thought she lost him… and the thought alone was so unbearable she was ready to jump off the tower.

She lifts her eyes to look at him.

The chilly wind of winter shivers her, but his proximity keeps her warm enough… maybe it's not only here right now… but in this place in general.

She rises to her toes to kiss him… softly… almost air light… and he responds with the same softness.

Almost like lovers…

And she makes up her mind: a boy…a man, who kisses her like this… deserves everything she has to give.

So there, under the stars, in the chill air of December, she lets go…

Releases the strings holding her back…. lets her movement speak the words she's scared to say out loud.

And he understands… doesn't make her say it… lets her give him permission and then takes the lead.

Like in everything he does, his movements are certain, and that makes her certain.

She never imagined it to happen like this… on the hard rock floor of the astronomy tower… her cheeks still tearstained, her hair a horrible mess after running around the castle in panic… but now she wouldn't want it any other way.

It's him and her… and they're here together… and that's all that matters.

So, she lets him strip her from her nightgown, lets him look at her, lets him kiss her all over…

The only coldness she feels are the shivers their movements send through her.

And when it finally happens… when they step over the line… and he enters her… his eyes are all she sees.

His deep pools of molten silver, sparkling with desire and… something tender she has no time to think about.

No matter if she's going to live the rest of her life here, in their silent solitude… or if she gets back to the real world… this is a moment she's never going to let go… a moment she holds to her heart as long as she lives…

Because, this… this is the moment when all the walls Draco Malfoy held up anymore… crumble down.

This is the moment Draco Malfoy belongs solely… only and exclusively… to her.

Not to his family…not to Slytherin… not to Voldemort… to her!

.

.

.

It's not only his walls that crumble that night… but hers too.

And that makes her discover things about herself, she never knew she had in her.

They're two teenagers studying each other in a world where there is no one else but them… And once the line is crossed, there's no going back.

They throw themselves in an affair that most people have only dirty dreams about.

Why study books, when there's a whole new, a much more interesting thing to study: each other?

She doesn't want to ask him where he learned all he knows… who taught him to read her signals like she was an open book… who specified all the places women want to be touched… and how to make a girl feel wanted… desired… exceptional?

And not once does he make her feel like she's lacking… like her inexperience counted.

As he promised before, he takes her in the library… pushing her between the shelves, making her scream in a way that, if heard, would ban them from the library for life.

With no one watching it becomes… limitless…

Never in her life has she considered herself wild… even when they were breaking all the school rules possible, she was well aware of what those rules were.

But now… not having to care about anything, she's just that, wild.

And completely under his spell… like he's under hers.

It's almost like they have a mission… to do it in every room of Hogwarts… and do it differently each time.

And every time he makes her scream.

Remotely, she knows it's not common… that it needs something from him to do that… that he needs to want her to scream to make her.

The intimacy makes their relationship an affair… no matter what they try to tell themselves…

The long lingering kisses and slow caresses make it more than a casual fuck… more than friends with benefits.

They click in so many levels… in so many ways… and somehow it doesn't bother her.

Maybe it's the ignorance doing that…

Maybe it's something else.

.

.

.

"I wish we could go outside."

They're in the Slytherin common room, her head resting on his lap and him, spinning her hair absently around his fingers, staring at the fire.

They stay in Slytherin mostly nowadays… she doesn't mind… doesn't ask if they could go to Gryffindor.

She like's it here…

Here, the silence isn't eerie… almost like this place is supposed to be silent… and the fish swimming by the windows, make her feel less like the only living things alive.

She also likes how at home he's here… in Gryffindor, he's always a visitor… an intruder… something she doesn't feel here… so they stay here… and it's fine.

"Me too." He mutters, "I miss flying."

"I miss the feel of wind… the smell of grass…"

"Well it's winter, so you couldn't smell grass even if you tried."

She snorts.

They're silent for a while… lost in the memories of the great outdoors.

Then suddenly she sits up and looks at him, face glowing, "I got an idea!"

"No! I'm not going to read a book about a forest and imagine myself there!"

She slaps his arm playfully, "Don't be stupid. Come on!"

She leads him to the door of the Room of Requirement.

"Do you think it works like that?" He asks suspiciously, having picked up her intention.

She shrugs, "Worth a try!"

It does work like that! The room gives them a yard.

A long green field of grass, a clear stream flowing a little further… bright summer day with birds singing.

It's not as good as the real thing, but it'll do.

He whoops and she turns around to see him mounting a broom and then swishing around the field with it.

Of course, it's only a room, so it has limitations, he can't go very high, but it seems only flying is enough.

She laughs at his excitement.

Then she lies down in the grass and breathes in the smell of it. Closing her eyes, it could actually pass as a real thing.

Magic is wonderful!

After a while, he lands next to her… she keeps her eyes closed.

"Come fly with me." He whispers in her ear.

She opens her eyes and looks at him, his face mere inches from her, smiling.

Sometimes, in moments like this, she doubts briefly if this is the real Draco Malfoy after all… If this weird dream produced her a fantasy version of him? What if she's to get back to the evil git he used to be and realize this other version of him never existed at all…?

It's a silly thought… she knows it... and hopes to god it's not true!

"I hate flying." She tells him slowly.

"You've never flown with me!" He says smugly.

And the smirk on his face tells her that, oh yes, this is him alright… the real him.

"I've hated it with everyone else… so I'll leave it to you."

He kisses her… so deeply she forgets what they were talking about. Presses his body against her and glides his hand to grab her ass.

She wraps her legs around him, guiding him to lie on top of her and lifts her hips against him.

He seems to have forgotten about the flying, just like that, as his other hand glides up under her shirt.

But then suddenly he stops… freezes his movement.

She looks at him confused, frustrated by the halt…

He leans over, lowering his head to her neck… then he shoves her dress aside and pushes two fingers inside her already wet folds…

She whimpers.

"Please…." He whispers.

And she's not sure what he's begging for.

His fingers glide on her and her mind is getting foggy.

She thinks she should be the one begging.

But then he's gone… his hands leave her, the weight of him lifts… leaving her all needy and unsatisfied.

She sits up, ready to give him a piece of her mind about starting something he has no intention to finish.

"I'll finish it if you catch me!" He throws a broom to her… and has already mounted his.

She blinks her eyes… really?! He's using sex to blackmail her into flying!?

Who does that!?

"You… bastard!" She yells after him, standing up, "You tricked me!"

He flies back, doing little loops around her, "I said please!"

"Because that makes all the difference!" She mutters getting on the broom, "I suck at this you know!"

"Come on, Granger. Live a little! Give it a try and I'll show you what I can suck." He winks suggestively.

"You're unbelievable!" She tests the broom under her fingers, "If I fall and snap my neck, I'll kill you!"

She kicks herself from the ground, "And I've told you! My name is Hermione!"

But to be honest she kind of likes it when he calls her Granger… feels like this Granger girl is much bolder and freer than Hermione ever was.

Maybe Granger can fly too…

"Catch me if you can!" He yells speeding towards the stream.

"Right…" She mutters trying to keep her broom as close to the ground as it's possible without her toes touching the grass.

"That is going to take at least a hundred years!" He's back again.

"Well, you wanted me to do this! Now watch! I'm flying, hooray!" She doesn't lift her eyes from the handle.

"That's more like hoovering. Here, let me show you."

And he shows her… lowers himself to the same level as she and shows her how to balance herself. Explains how to stay in balance, how to steer, to slow down and speed up.

She knows all of those things… in theory… but no one ever bothered to really show her how to keep control of her broom.

At the end of an hour, she's flying… not fast, not gracefully, but more and better she ever did… and she's not that afraid either.

"See, not that bad!" He beams at her as she lands, "We'll continue tomorrow."

And then he has thrown his broom aside and attacked her lips with such a force they tumble over to the grass.

He's back over her… his fingers back in between her thighs and his lips back on hers… but he never makes promises he's not intended to keep… so, soon it's his face in between her thighs and she's burying her fingers in his hair as he makes her fly on a completely different level.

And after she thinks, she doesn't actually much mind flying again tomorrow.


	7. Chapter 7

Weeks roll past.

Christmas comes.

She insists they ask The Room of Requirement for Christmas decorations and decorate the dorm and the Great Hall.

He's not so enthusiastic… but watches her fuss with half amused, half irritated look on his face.

She doesn't care! She loves Christmas, so she's going to make sure they have a proper one.

But even when the castle gives them a grand Christmas dinner… he stays gloomy the whole night.

Until she gets tired of trying to keep the mood up.

"Okay!" She huffs, putting down her knife and fork, "What's the matter?"

He tries to pretend surprised, but she knows him too well already.

So, she waits, not turning her gaze from him.

Finally, his shoulders slack and he looks down to his plate, "I hate Christmas… all these decorations and food… and everything…only reminds me of sitting on different sides of the table...no talking...father trying not to lecture how I was...again...only second in my class."

She doesn't know what to say… she thought his parents loved him… and pampered him… christmas should remind him of overflowing piles of presents!

"I thought…" She starts but doesn't know how to go on.

"I know what you… and everyone else thought of my family." He says bitterly.

"Actually, I thought you were the most important thing for them..." She says silently.

"I was… well maybe for mother… but the family name… the legacy… they were more important." He looks at her, "Actually I always blamed you… if you didn't exist, I would have been top of the class."

"Or not… I think you need the competition." She speaks aloud the first thought coming to her mind.

He shrugs.

"Draco," She takes his hand across the table, "I'm sorry, you never got a proper Christmas… your parents, they should have…"

Something flashes in his eyes… and she realizes too late, she shouldn't have said that.

"Don't talk about them…" He growls suddenly.

"But you just said…" She tries, but he has yanked his hand away.

"I didn't tell you that so that you can pity me!" He spits.

"I don't pity you! I just wanted…"

"To tell me how much better it'll be here? To prove how you can do it better?"

He has stood up… and she's still a little confused what made him this angry.

"You're just like everyone else! Judging my parents and the ways they've treated me, based on the rumors and splinters of information."

She stands up too.

"I think I know a thing or two!"

"What can you possibly know Granger!?" He spits, "It's just the way you are… thinking you know everything!"

That hurt… even when she's used to him saying things like that… but not here… not in this reality that includes just the two of them.

He's acting all unfair now.

"I just fought your father and aunt in the ministry last spring!" She's yelling, "I think I know what kind of people they are! Or at least what kind of people they are for people like me!"

He rounds the table and comes to stand before her.

His eyes are angry… blazing like a storm.

"You know nothing about my family." He whispers and then he walks away.

She feels the tears behind her eyes… and wants to call him back… to tell him she's sorry… but she's not sure she is.

Fine! If he wants to be a stubborn asshole in Christmas Eve, let him be!

But the tears come anyway.

She sits down before the table… before the unfinished delicates… puts her face to her hands and cries.

Because today she misses her family… and her friends…

She misses the lively Christmas dinner at her parent's place, where all the relatives gather around the same table.

She misses the carols and excitement.

But it's more than that… this night also made her realize how far she and Draco actually are… that here they can easily pretend that the outside world does not matter… that the past doesn't matter…

And it's true that without the past… and the outside world… she likes him… the person he is when no one is watching… she likes him maybe more than she'd like to admit.

But the things in the background… the things he is with other people around… the burdens and the legacy… It's easy to ignore here… but they're part of him…

Lucius and Narcissa… Bellatrix… The Death Eaters… That's the family he knows… the family he stands with no matter what…

They're his family… how come she ignored the reality so badly before this… how come she pretended it didn't matter because the only family he has here is her…

Yes, that may be true… but in a real world… against his real family… she doesn't mean shit to any of them… so how did she think she could compete?

She can't turn him… because he's a Malfoy… and the family he stands with… is her enemy.

.

.

.

She sleeps in her own bed that night… in the tower… feeling cold and lonely.

In the morning as soon as she wakes up, she walks to the decorated hall and tears down all that might remind her of Christmas.

Then she sits alone in Gryffindor… staring at the fire.

Until late afternoon he emerges through the door.

She acts like she didn't notice him.

But he stands there, without saying a word for so long she finally has to look at him.

"Look…" He starts but she lifts her hand up to stop him.

"I can't do this." She tells him silently, "Not if nothing has really changed. I can't pretend… to be something… with you, if none of it is real outside of this."

He doesn't try to interrupt her.

"We can't pretend none of what we were before matters here! I'm still a Muggle-born! I still want to destroy Voldemort! And you… you'll still stand with your family if we ever get out of here… and your family wants to get rid of everyone like me."

She stands up and goes to stand before him, "I'm not going to ask you to change that… but I can't pretend to be okay with it. I thought I could… but not anymore… "

His face is static as he looks at her… he doesn't move, doesn't speak…

She wants to cry… because letting go of what they have here… it hurts more than she'd like to admit.

And she'd so gladly pretend… so gladly keep up the light, fluffy, passionate romance they had going on… but it wouldn't be real… and realizing it any later would only hurt her more.

"I'm sorry I ruined your Christmas." He finally says finally.

She shakes her head… "Never mind…"

It's not important… not anymore… there are more pressing things now… like how they're going to be distant again.

He turns to walk away.

And she's biting her lip… keeping the tears from falling before he's out the door.

But he turns around again...back to her.

"No." He says firmly… and she has no idea what he means.

Before she finds her voice, he's back… towering over her, invading her personal space.

She blinks.

"It's not true what you said." He tells her, almost angrily, "I told you before, standing with my family will get me killed anyway! You want this to be real? Well, this is the most real I've ever been!"

She's staring at him with wide eyes.

"This is me, Granger!" He spreads his hands, "If you think this here, is pretending, you have no idea what pretending is like!"

He inhales, "Don't you see? Pretending is all I do in the real world! Because of those stupid rules! But no matter what that makes you think about them, they're still my family! No matter what I might think about them, nothing changes that! But that doesn't mean I agree with everything they do!"

"But you'll still stand by them?!" She protests.

"I WAS FUCKING READY TO KILL MYSELF TO GET RID OF IT"

"And you'll still go back to them if we ever get back!" She's not going to drop that, "You'll still fight me and my side!"

"SHOW ME ANY OTHER WAY AND I WON'T" He roars to her face, "SHOW ME HOW TO GET OUT OF THIS WITHOUT GETTING MY MOTHER AND FATHER KILLED?!"

She just stares at him.

"You know what? I don't even care if I was on different side… if I just knew they'd be safe. But the only way is if I die! That's the only scenario He won't kill them for my failure."

"Draco…" She reaches for his hand… her anger vanished.

And now she feels stupid… because she assumed… even when all his recent actions prove her wrong… she assumed he'd still go back to them… even when he promised her he won't fight her...ä

Is this how much she's ready to trust him?

After all these weeks of being so close to him?

Her shame is reflected in the sadness on his face… and she feels so ashamed.

"I'm sorry… I shouldn't have…" She mutters.

"Old ways die hard…" He grins sadly.

She shakes her head, "No, you didn't deserve it… I shouldn't… I shouldn't have said those things..."

He stays silent for a while and then, without looking at her he says: "I never had to think of them like that, you know?"

She doesn't know what he's talking about.

"My family… My parents… they're strict and demanding… but they're my parents and I'm their only son… I never had to question what they did… not before I was let in the Death Eater meetings… not before I understood what they were doing… Fighting with you on the ministry… they're adults… and they talk like they're fighting a real war… but you're kids."

He looks down, "All I could think of when I listened to them was Diggory's dead body after the tournament… and how unfair it was… And now… I must kill Dumbledore? I'm sixteen! How can I possibly do that?! I know I told them I wanted it… briefly, I was even proud of it… But even I know enough of wars to know children are usually not on the front line no matter how they want to!"

He inhales and she waits for him to continue.

"I understand, that what is happening is twisted and wrong… I hate Potter, don't get me wrong! But he's a fucking child! Like you, like me, like all of them! I should stand with my family… but even I understand how sick it is to put children on the battlefield!"

She lets his words sink in… and realizes he's right… it's sick!

The Death Eaters in the ministry last spring… they aimed to kill when their opponents were… kids… children! She thought it was war… but he is right! That was no war!

"But they're still my parents…" He says, barely audible.

And she understands… The way he sees them… the way the image of them has formed in his mind… they are his parents…and he's their only child… of course, he loves them…

She thinks of her parents… what if they did something horrible?

There's no denying… she'd try to justify it for them… because they're her parents and she loves them… and they've never been anything but loving towards her.

"It's awfully lonely without you…" She whispers after a while.

He huffs, "I couldn't even sleep… I tried the sofa, but the fucking decorations kept accusing me."

"I really am sorry for judging you so soon…" She thinks she needs to clear that up.

"It's not like I couldn't do better…" He shrugs and then he leans down and kisses her.

And as their lips move together, and his hands sneak around her waist to pull her closer she realizes it was never possible to stay away from him…

She would have made up some excuse for herself… some explanation how staying sane enough to get them out of here required her to kiss him… to be held by him…

She's ruined… all her noble ideas are ruined… and she'd let him ruin the rest of her… if that's what it took to stay close to him.

Because the world was right when he held her like this.

.

.

.

As the year changes, they stand on top of the Astronomy tower… looking for fireworks but seeing only the dark night.

His standing behind her, his hands around her waist and she's leaning to his chest.

"I can almost sense them if I close my eyes." She tells him.

"What?"

"The fireworks! All the different colors!"

He huffs.

But after a moment he lets go of her and goes to the open railing, pulling something from his pocket.

And then she doesn't have to imagine… because the sky lights up with all the different colors.

"Where did you get them?" She asks in awe as she goes to stand beside him.

"From the Room of course. I thought that since you love Christmas so much the same must go for other holidays too."

She laughs freely and happily.

"Do you think it's midnight yet?"

He shrugs, "Does it matter?"

"It does! We have this muggle tradition…" She turns to him and he raises an eyebrow at her, she smiles.

"It starts with the countdown to midnight…"

She starts to count from 10 down and he joins her at 5 rolling his eyes.

When they reach zero, she pulls him to her and kisses him.

The fireworks still flashing on the sky.

And at that moment… she wouldn't want to be here with anyone else!


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: Your comments make me super happy! Thank you for them!**

** I usually don't post two chapters in two days but this makes so exited! so here we go again:**

* * *

What does it take to make a huge silent castle a home?

She still doesn't have a certain answer….

Maybe it's settling in… getting used to that you're the only two people in here…

Maybe it's their stuff spreading around the common room…

Or the way they can wish for food in the empty Great Hall and actually get what they wished for the next day.

Or how they know their way around with eyes closed… she was never able to do that before… she never paid attention that much when there were other people.

Maybe it's the familiarity of their bed in the dorm… and his arms around her every night…

Or the everchanging sky in the astronomy tower they climb at nights.

Or possibly the way they can ask things from The Room… The walk-in closet it provides her…

The only thing they really lack is the freedom to leave and other people.

And the more time goes by… she thinks she can't even remember other people anymore.

They need to occupy their time somehow… only sex isn't enough past time for too long… especially for two people like them.

So, they start to practice their skills… master spells they never dreamed of mastering at their age.

"Occlumency." She tells him one spring morning at the hall.

"No"

"Come on! Why not?"

"I can't teach it!"

"But you know it?"

"I'm an Occlumens."

She stares at him.

"You're…" She stutters, "but… you're… there's no way…"

He shrugs, slightly amused by her wordlessness.

"Mother taught me some… but I guess I'm a natural."

"How do you know?"

"They can't get in."

"Who?"

He studies her for a while, "Snape… and Dumbledore… Voldemort."

Her eyes go wide, "You can keep them out?"

He nods.

She doesn't know why that makes her giggle.

And before long she's laughing so hard her eyes are watering… and he looks at her like she has lost her mind.

"You can keep Voldemort out? Who knows about this?"

"No one…" He mutters.

She's laughing harder.

"What's so funny?" He looks a little irritated.

"Do you know what kind of an asset that is?"

He doesn't answer… just studies her silently.

"The things you could tell him!"

"I'm not a good liar…"

He speaks so quietly she almost has to read the words from his lips.

He's shaking his head, "Not in front of him…"

"That, we can fix!" She tells him brightly, "We could have our whole lives to practice! You teach me and I help you with lying!"

She can tell he doesn't believe her being able to teach him to lie… but agrees anyway.

.

.

.

It's hard… so much harder than she thought.

And the worst part isn't the exhaustion… it's the memories he makes her live through… the memories she can't block from him.

She tells him it's okay… that she wants to learn… but over and over again she's on her knees, on the floor… crying.

The loneliness

The bullies

Ron's hurting words.

Being alone at Hogwarts because no one liked her…

The never-ending doubt she doesn't belong here… she doesn't deserve her magic…

And every time she snaps out of it, he's there… on his knees holding her…

"I'm sorry…" He whispers in a chocked voice.

They never talk about her memories outside of their practice… but she doesn't know how long she can take this anymore.

He seems to think the same… "Don't you think we should take a break of this?"

"No! Let's just try once more!"

Maybe it's the knowledge she's going to try only this once… or maybe she just suddenly got it… but this time… she fights back.

And then it's his memories she watches.

A small blond boy receiving a broomstick… his eyes sparkling.

The same boy offering his hand to Harry Potter and being rejected… the shame, the sorrow and the disappointment he feels.

A little older boy by the lake in the summer, splashing water with his friends.

Her… punching the boy in the face… and him staring after her as she marches away.

Her in her blue dress in the yule ball… and Pansy trying to regain his attention.

Then the darkness… his eyes following his father leaving the room… the knowledge he's going to do something bad…

The image of Cedric Diggory's body… and him demanding his father to tell what's going on.

Lucius' hand raised…the sound a palm makes as it contacts skin with force…and shame… stronger than the pain…

Voldemort… in a dim lit room… the snake at his feet… and the dread, the feeling it all got too real… his will to run away.

The mark… burned to his skin… and the demand for being worth the family name.

The look in his friends' eyes in the train… And the overpowering feeling that none of them really understand.

And then the tower… and darkness… the certainty that now, it all ends.

And then her, leaning over the railing, eyes blazing, pulling him back to life.

Her… in the flashing of the fireworks, smiling at him.

In his eyes… she looks lively, fierce, happy…beautiful…

And before she gets to process the feelings associated with that memory, she's whisked out.

She blinks… meets his eyes and prepares to be sorry that she let it go on for so long.

But he doesn't look angry… he looks proud.

"You did it!" He tells her.

That's when she realizes, she really did! That she can learn it after all!

And she laughs out loud, "I really did!"

They don't talk about the memories she saw when she was in his head…

But she lies awake the next night… listening to his steady breathing… going through what she saw… thinking how very differently it all would have gone if Harry had shaken his hand… if she would have understood more… if…

.

.

.

Time has little meaning when you have nowhere to be… but not knowing how long they have, also makes them savor the time spent here.

It's not like she doesn't miss the others… miss her parents… her friends… but day by day they become less real… a distant memory of a time she lived before.

And the only things real, are the corridors of the castle, the empty picture frames, the hum of silence...

But she doesn't mind.

Months go by… and she stops to remember who he was before this… who she was…

The only reality is this... this place where he knows everything about her… where she has nothing to hide from him… and she knows everything about him… where he has nothing to hide from her.

She lies on the table in the great hall looking at the clouds in the magical ceiling… the table used to be the teachers' table… but not here… now it's only a table.

"Do you think we should miss it more?" She asks, still looking at the clouds.

He lifts his head from the book he's been reading, sitting on the biggest chair… than once belonged to Dumbledore… legs up on the table, she's lying on.

"What?"

"The past…" She voices her thoughts, "The people… I don't know… everything."

She turns her head to look at him.

He too turns his eyes to the clouds and shrugs.

"Well, not me… you maybe..."

That's right… his life was complicated and miserable back there…

Should she miss hers more?

"They feel so distant here…almost like I've dreamed them."

He nods… he knows what she means.

Of course, he does.

"What if we get back and won't remember anything about this? What if this feels like a dream then?"

He puts his legs down and leans closer to her, "We've been through this."

Yes, they have… many…many times… and over and over again.

And the conclusion is always the same: if that happens, the solution is always that they can't help it.

She's writing a diary… but what if she can't take it with her?

That's about the only thing she fears here anymore… that they'll suddenly wake up back in the real world and she won't remember this… won't remember him.

Because she can't lose him!

And he can't lose her!

She feels like he's the only one who ever got her! Who really understood who she was!

And she… she's the only one who really knows him! Who really understands what he is and what he has gone through.

Funny, how she used to fear they'll be stuck here forever… and now she fears they won't be.

"I can't help you if I don't remember you!" She sits up on the table.

"There's really nothing we can do about it!" He sounds frustrated.

If there only was a way to ensure they had access to these memories…

She turns to him triumphantly.

"I know! There is a way to make sure we remember!"

She gets up and kisses him happily, "Come on!"

In the potions lab she pulls out the smallest vials she can find and as she works, she explains her idea to him.

"We can store some of our memories, put them in one of these vials, make it into a necklace and carry it with us! That's how the memories won't get separated from us!"

Only after does she realize she assumed he wants to remember her too…

But he doesn't protest… just looks at her curiously and seems to agree it's a good idea.

So, she finds no reason to question him.

.

.

.

She used to have ambitions… plans on how her life should go after school… what she was going to do.

Now, there are no career options to think about.

But it's not like them to sit idly by… wait for time to pass…

So as time goes by, they start to do spell research… Do a little tests and document everything they find out.

It becomes kind of their job… and it's not the worst job to have!

Actually, she thinks she would have never found such a job on her own… or such a partner…

But now that she has them… she couldn't think a job, better suited for her.

And the best part of it: Her partner who can almost read her thoughts.

And so goes life…

A life she never knew she wanted… with the last person, she could imagine it…

But what a life it is!

What a beautiful life.

.

.

.

It's summer.

The water in the lake is clearer, the air in the Astronomy tower mellow and the wind warm.

She wears summer dresses and puts flowers in her hair.

And he rolls up his sleeves and laughs at her flowers.

She makes him wear muggle summer clothes the Room provides them… forces his feet into flipflops and musses his hair.

"It's summer, you ought to relax!"

"I look ridiculous!" He complains… but doesn't put on his robes anymore… or his black shoes.

She takes the credit! But doesn't tell that to him!

After weeks of trying they finally manage to grow grass on the floor of the great hall… and now it smells like summer too!

She's starting to think that if someone put them here… they did them a favor!

Until she wakes up one night.

And hears it…

In the ever-humming silence… a ticking sound in the distance…

Tick tock

Tick tock

She sits up to listen…

Tick tock

It's almost too quiet to hear… a silent echo of a clock.

And she's sure, it wasn't there before.

All the months they've been here… she has heard no ticking!

"Draco…" She shakes him gently.

He groans and turns his back to her.

"Draco!" She shakes a little more.

"What!?" He snaps sleepily.

"Do you hear that?"

He listens for a while… and then sits up too.

"Is it a clock?"

"How can it be? I've never heard that before."

He shakes his head "Neither have I."

They sit in silence for a moment.

A thousand scenarios flash in her mind…each worse than the last.

"We need to go see." He starts to get up, and she follows him.

As they exit the common room, the ticking echoes louder… but still somewhere far above them.

Just like that… their home has turned from a harbor to something strange and threatening.

He takes her hand in his as they walk up the stairs.

Tick tock.

Like their time was running low… like a bomb, ready to explode… like a timer, counting down their last minutes.

She grips his hand tighter.

At least they're together.

The sound makes the corridors feel foreign… they're so used to their own steps being the only sound, it almost feels like it's not their castle anymore.

Like someone has invaded their private reality.

Tick tock.

The more stairs they climb the closer the sound gets… it's allaround them… echoing in each corridor and hall and classroom.

She doesn't want to know what it is…does not want to face what it means…

They're in the third floor… in the corridor that once hid Fluffy, protecting the Philosophers stone… in front of the first door, she ever opened with magic.

And the ticking rings in her ears.

"It comes from here." He says certainly.

Then, before she understands what he's doing, he pulls her behind him and opens the door.

When nothing attacks them, she peaks over his shoulder… only then realizing he moved her out of the way before opening the door in case of an attack.

They enter the room, and she steps from behind him, still holding his hand.

It's a clock.

Almost the size of the whole wall… round clock with golden rims.

The ticking bangs her eardrums as they stare at it.

There are no numbers… only lines marking the hours.

And two hands… like arrows pointing the time…

She thinks of the clock in Mrs. Weasley's kitchen…

She's almost certain this clock doesn't point only time… because the hands… pointing to somewhere where number three should be… the other red and gold, and the other green and silver… must represent them…

"What does it mean?" He asks frowning.

She shakes her head.

She has no idea… but somehow, she feels it can't be good.

And as he looks at her… she can see he knows that too.


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N: So sorry for what I'm about to do! But this has to happen!**

* * *

Nothing's really different… and everything is.

Because now, there's the ominous ticking following them, where ever they go.

Like a rhythm to their days… impossible to tune out.

It makes her feel like their time is running low.

But low on what?

Their time in here?

Or their time in general?

Their time together?

What if it stops one day and they just disappear?

Like always he tries to keep her mind off things they can do nothing about.

But even when he's kissing her… holding her… touching her… there's the ticking that never leaves them alone.

"Maybe it's meant to drive us insane?" She muses as they lie in the bed, his finger absently drawing circles on her bare back, "Maybe the silence didn't work… so they added this?"

"Who are they exactly?"

"I don't know! Maybe that's the problem!" She groans against him, "I just want to live in peace!"

"This is peace." He talks to her hair.

"With the fucking ticking it isn't!"

"Forget it!" He tilts her head up and kisses her… all consuming.

And briefly she believes it's possible to forget.

.

.

.

They return to the books… trying to find a meaning to the clock.

But before they find anything… the tolls start.

She drops the books she's been holding.

It's like the whole castle is vibrating as the bell tolls.

It makes her think of funerals…

He has frozen too… listening to the sound echoing from all the walls.

Twelve times… then it stops… and it's back to ticking.

Panic bubbles in her.

She turns the small vial, hanging around her neck, in her hands… If this all disappears now, at least she has these memories!

"We need to go, see what it meant." He's standing beside her… his hand on the small of her back.

She takes a deep breath and nods.

He starts to lead the way, but she stops him, "Draco…"

"If something happens…"

"Don't! Nothing is happening to you!" He takes her hand.

"No, you need to listen!" She pleads him, "If something happens…I… I wouldn't change a thing! I would… I will help you in the real world too if that's what it takes! I'll tell everyone I'm on your side…I'll… stand by you… if you want me to."

He's shaking his head… but there's a sad smile in his eyes… and something else too.

He doesn't say anything but kisses her and then looks deep into her eyes, "Nothing is going to happen to you!"

Then they go… to the clock room.

But nothing's different.

"It's little over midday…" He studies the clock, "Explains the twelve tolls."

She refuses to believe it's just that… but nothing's seemingly different, so there's not much they can do.

The same happens in midnight… twelve tolls… nothing else.

He tries to act like it doesn't bother him, but she can see his on the edge too… and as reluctant to let her out of his sight, as she is with him.

The pressure makes their mood more serious… before the ticking they were so used to be at ease… now it's like tip toing… never knowing what tomorrow brings.

She feels like she should tell him… but what if he thinks it's not real? What if he doesn't feel like she does?

But it pains her to think they'll leave here without him knowing… even if he must know something… she promised to stand by him after all… but she feels like she needs to elaborate… To tell him how much she cares about him… how much she likes the person he is… how she feels like he understands her without her having to say a word… how in her dreams they have a future… and in that future he's her family for real.

Without the clock and the tolling this was the only reality… and in that reality it seemed inevitable… their future… but anywhere else…

She should tell him… but something holds her back.

.

.

.

Time still goes on and the warm summer breeze starts to smell like autumn.

Sometimes it rains as they stand in the tower.

The rain makes her think that maybe the world outside is still turning… people living their lives… they just can't see them.

The thought chills her insides.

They find hundreds of magical clocks from the books.

But none of them lead them any closer to knowing what their clock means.

"Maybe we should just smash it to pieces?" He suggests one day.

"Without any idea what it does if we do that?"

They can't do that… And then it comes down to what they want out of life.

Because she's almost certain, if the clock was there when they first woke up in here, they wouldn't have thought twice… smashing it would have been the first thing to try to get them out.

Then it didn't matter as long as they got out.

Now the outcome mattered a lot!

"Listen!" She stops him and points at the book she's holding, "Experiments, made in the department of mysteries, show that there are, in fact, multiple timelines besides our own."

He leans closer, "Show me."

She continues, "Those timelines run with our known timeline, holding the possible alternative realities." She turns to him, "What if this is one of those alternative timelines?"

"Why would we be the only ones here then? Shouldn't there be like double versions of everyone?" He sounds doubtful.

"Maybe something went wrong and only we got to this timeline?"

"Doesn't explain the clock though."

He's right, it doesn't… and other than suspicion the book doesn't give them much else.

But if this is an alternative timeline…doesn't it mean that the original is going on somewhere in another dimension?

Without them?

Is it even possible to jump from one timeline to another?

"I'm going to the library." She tells him getting up.

He's not that exited… but reluctantly follows her nevertheless.

.

.

.

"It's about a year now." He tells her one evening beside the fire.

She only nods, knowing he's right.

After a while of silence, she sits up to look at him seriously, "What if this is the rest of our lives?"

He shrugs, "Could be worse."

"What if I'm the only company you'll have for the rest of your life?"

It's not like she hasn't thought about that before… but this is the first time she brings it up with him.

His eyes meet hers and he shrugs again, "Could do worse."

She studies him silently,

After a while he says, "I mean what if I was stuck here for all eternity with Weasley for example?"

She snorts without meaning to, "What a beautiful romance it would have been."

He wrinkles his nose, looking repulsed, "No! That's where I draw the line!"

Then he goes serious, "Besides if it wasn't you, I wouldn't be here to have romance with anyone."

That's right… he would have jumped…

The thought of him not existing makes her suddenly overflowingly sad.

If he would have jumped, she would never have gotten to know him.

And the thought that she would have lost him before she even knew she wanted to have him… almost makes her want to cry.

"I'm glad I didn't let you jump." She says sadly.

He lifts his hand to move a stray curl from her face, "So am I."

She leans in to kiss him.

Lifts her hands up to pull him closer.

And he picks her up… carries her to the bedroom…

She knows him so well… every angle… every muscle… every scar… under her hands.

She knows how to kiss him… how to touch him… like he knows her.

He's the ice to her fire… the water to her earth… he's part of her… undeniable.

And he's the only one who ever should be holding her…

he's the only one to touch her…

the only man to make love to her…

because she's his… body and soul, too…

all of her… in this reality… this timeline… and in all the other timelines they might ever live in.

.

.

.

She wakes up in the morning… unsure at first what woke her up.

But after a while she realizes: Silence.

There's no ticking… no tolls.

Eyes closed she listens to the familiar silence.

Is this good? Or bad?

"Draco." She turns to him.

He's sitting up in the bed… looking slightly confused.

There's something else off about him too…

Almost like… his transparent…

and the look on his face, is like he hears something… something she can't hear.

She reaches for him… but the only thing her fingers touch is air.

Her heart takes an extra leap and she tries again.

But as he doesn't react to her, she realizes she doesn't feel the weight of him in the bed either.

What's happening?

"Draco?" She manages a chocked sound as she rises to sit next to him.

But he has already gotten up, yanked the curtains from around the bed.

She shrieks and lifts the blanket to cover her upper body.

Because the room is full of people… she can't hear a sound… but they're there.

Vincent Grabbe and Gregory Goyle sitting on their beds.

Theo Nott buttoning his shirt and Blaise Zabini exiting the bathroom looking at Draco with questioning face.

Draco is looking around, moving the sheets like searching for something.

Is he looking for her?

But the sheets in her bed… don't move.

They can't see her… He can't see her!

The bed his in… looks like the same bed she sits on… but is not.

She feels like world has stopped turning.

Panicked she reaches for him again… but with no success…

He can't see her… can't hear her… can't feel her.

He's there… and she's alone in the other side… and he has no idea.

His hand shoots up to reach for the vial of memories that is still around his neck… it seems to calm him a little.

But he's still looking around like expecting she might show up suddenly.

And oh, how she wishes she could!

She doesn't even care there are other people in the room! She just wants to feel him! for him to hold her and never let go!

The boys are talking… she can tell by the movement of their lips…

She wants to scream! To cry! To throw something!

She picks up a pillow and throws it across the room where Theo is standing.

The pillow lands on the empty bed with a thud… but on the boys' side, nothing!

As he dresses up, she numbly does the same.

Because she doesn't know what else to do.

Just follow him… she tells herself… he'll notice you're not there and he'll do something about it.

He doesn't wait for his friends but dashes out the room as soon as he's in his clothes.

She follows.

Everything is back.

The room, the halls buzzing with people… who don't see her… don't know she's here.

He though, seems to have hard time getting used to other people… he bumps into them every now and then, rushing through the corridors.

She's still in the same silence... walking through people running behind him towards the Great Hall.

Please be a nightmare… she prays as they reach the hall.

But it just gets worse.

She steps into the hall on his heels… it's full of cheery students having breakfast.

And there, in the Gryffindor table… she sees Harry and Ron and Ginny in a vivid conversation… and next to Ginny… is her.

Her, like she used to be before this all happened.

She even looks different…

And by the look of herself… she wonders if time has passed at all.

"No…" She whispers as he starts to make his way towards the Gryffindors, "nonononono!"

It's like all her nightmares have come true… like all the bad things she thought could happen have happened…

Because the moment he taps her shoulder and the shadow of her turns around… he knows… and she knows… that her, on the table, she remembers nothing.

He looks at that girl and she wants to cry… because behind the mask he tries to put on she sees desperation and confusion.

He remembers… but she doesn't…

It's so much worse they ever thought it could be! It was always the fear that none of them will remember… never the possibility that only the other one doesn't.

"It's not me!" She tries to yell into his ear, "I'm here! I'm still here!"

Tears start to gather in her eyes… and she feels like her fingers have gone numb.

He needs her!

HE NEEDS HER AND SHE'S NOT THERE!

"IT'S NOT ME! I STILL REMEMBER!" She cries, trying to take hold of his sleeve.

But he still doesn't hear her… And she doesn't hear what he's saying but he's showing her the vial around his neck.

And the fake her on the table looks at him… like he's something dirty.

She never knew she had that look on her face when she looked at him.

Ron stands up and clearly tells Draco to fuck off.

He tries to protest… pointing to her neck.

Frustrated her in the table lifts up a pedant she vaguely remembers carrying around.

The look on his face is taken aback and full of disbelief… then he turns around and runs out the hall.

She follows him… up the corridors to the third floor… yanks open the clock room door with him.

The room he enters is empty… but in hers the clock is still there.

And now… standing close to it, she hears it's still ticking.

But quietly now… and the hand with his colors… has stopped.

He falls to his knees on the floor of the empty room and buries his face to his hands.

For a moment she tries to scream his name through her tears… but after a while, she too, falls on the floor sobs wrecking through her.

Please

Please

Please

Let this be a nightmare!


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N: Let's see how Draco is doing, shall we? **

* * *

**HIM**

He dreams of palm trees… white sand and emerald water.

He knows she's there… but can't see her… only the white sand beach as far as the eye can see.

It's beautiful and serene… but something… some voice on the back of his mind nags, that something is off… that it's almost too perfect to be real.

A wave crashes to the shore and he wakes up with a jolt.

And something is definitely off!

He sits up in his bed… and listens to the sounds in the room.

People are talking… people… talking?

He doesn't remember closing the curtains around his bed.

They never do, because who's going to see them?

For a year there has been no one but him and her… they don't need curtains.

But now they are closed.

He yanks the curtains open.

"Morning sunshine!" Theo greets him.

Theo?

Reality sinks in little by little… is this a dream?

Hermione… the thought hits his mind and he turns around to look for her… she must be as confused as he is.

But she's not there… he ruffles the sheets like she might be hiding in them.

Blaise enters and asks what he's looking for.

Everything feels surreal!

He was holding her… she was next to him! And now she isn't!

His hand shoots up to feel the vial around his neck…. thank god it's still there!

So, it wasn't all a dream.

He looks at his friends… and wants to ask what day is it? How long was he gone?

But they don't look like nothing is off… they don't act like any time has passed at all.

"I wish it was the seventh year already." He groans… testing the ground.

If they were gone as long as they thought they were, it would be the start of their seventh year.

"Tell me about it! At least we'd be off age then!" Blaise answers.

So it isn't.

He thinks of his dream… about the tropical beach… and suddenly vaguely remembers he has had that dream before.

It was when he first ended up trapped in the empty castle with her.

Is he back to the start?

Is she too?

That must be it! They're back!

Somehow, they've gotten back to where it all began, and no time has gone by?

So, she has woken up in Gryffindor and must be as confused as he is!

He throws his clothes on in haste and starts to make his way to the Great hall.

The voices of other people buzz in his ears and make his headache.

Their silence was convenient… now there are too many people… too much noise!

He bumps into people as he goes… but doesn't care.

His only thought is her.

If they're back to square one… back to reality… to his impossible task… to death eaters and dark mark and demands and death!

She's the only one who can help!

She's his voice of reason!

She knows him almost like no one else does!

Together they'll figure out what to do now.

He's back to this nightmare they call reality… and she's the only one who can save him!

He needs her… desperately… as pathetic as it sounds.

And yes, she's there!

Relief flushes over him.

She's back too! Sitting in the Gryffindor table, talking to her friends.

A part of him is disappointed she didn't look for him… that she just casually sits there as if nothing has changed… when everything has!

He makes his way to her and taps her shoulder.

But when she turns, he realizes… and it's like someone poured a bucket of ice water on his head.

She looks at him like she doesn't know him… or she does… but not like she really knows him… not like the girl who fell asleep in his arms just hours ago did.

"What do you want Malfoy?" She asks with a cold voice.

He didn't even remember she used to talk to him like that.

He doesn't know what to say… how to approach her.

Keep it cool… he tells himself… don't let her see something's wrong.

… Don't let them see how lost you feel…

"Do you have your vial?" Is the only thing he can think of asking, that'll make any sense at all.

If she still has it, then maybe there's still hope she'll come back…

"What are you playing at?" She asks with a low disapproving voice.

Weasley stands up and tells him to Fuck off and stop bothering them if he has nothing better.

He wants to retort back… but her vial is more important.

"Do you have it!?" He points at her neck.

She sighs and shows him the pendant around her neck, "No Malfoy! I don't have any vials! And I have no idea what you're talking about."

She doesn't have it…

The pendant she impatiently waves at him is not a vial.

She has lost it… and maybe it's because of that, she's lost it all.

All the months with him… she has no idea they ever existed.

He turns around and dashes away from the room.

Just hours ago, life was good! Life was right!

He had her… she was his!

And now there's nothing left!?

He runs upstairs, to the room where they found the eerie golden clock… maybe he'll find answers there.

But the room is empty.

He stands in the middle of it… feeling like the walls closing in… like the weight that their solitude lifted from his shoulders is pressing him down again.

Then he gives up and falls on his knees on the floor, burying his head to his hands.

She's gone.

And he's alone again.

And the world… the beautiful silent serenity… has gone with her.

.

.

.

It's the same day they left. So, for anyone else nothing has changed.

He follows his classmates to the classes… sits in the back row staring at the wall… turning the vial in his hands… feeling like a ghost… a shell.

Repair the cabinet… Kill Dumbledore… his impossible tasks are back on.

The life of everyone he held dear is back in his hands.

Except for her… at least she's safe! At least they can't touch her because of him.

His hand closes around the vial as he realizes how dangerous it is to have it on him.

If someone takes it and sees the memories it holds… she'll be in danger whether she remembers or not!

He has to hide it!

"Mr. Malfoy?" Professor McGonagall is looking at him with expecting look.

He has no idea what she asked… not even sure what the topic of the class is…

There are far more important things to worry about.

So, he claims he doesn't feel good and walks out of the room without waiting for permission to leave.

Fuck them… they don't know anything!

Rushing downstairs, he runs into her.

It's not even his fault and still, she looks at him disapprovingly.

He doesn't like that look on her.

But this may be his only chance to find out if she really doesn't remember… or if she just changed her mind about him… or if she's just pretending…

So, he grabs her arm, turning her to him.

She smells familiar… like home…

"Granger," He hisses.

"Let go of me!" She demands with the same foreign voice she talked to him in the morning.

"Did something weird happen to you this morning?" He asks hastily, not letting go of her wiggling arm.

"Are you threatening me?" She shoots back.

Did he sound like it? Did she really think… she really used to hate him then!?

"No, Granger." He looks straight at her…

Her hair is the same… her familiar form… her lips…and her eyes… but the look on her face is not.

That look doesn't belong to the girl he… misses… badly, already!

"Just asking, did something weird happen?" He needs to know!

She yanks her hand free, "No, Malfoy! Nothing weird happened to me! And even if something did, it's not your business!"

Then she's gone.

He stares after her… her scent lingering in his nose.

Not knowing what else to do he turns and makes his way back to the dungeons… Transforms the vial into uninteresting pedant and slips it back around his neck.

No matter she doesn't remember… he's not ready to give up just yet!

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.

.

More than once he paces behind Dumbledore's door.

More than once he plans on going to the Headmaster and telling him everything.

He does the same behind Snape's door.

But he doesn't trust Snape… Snape's a Death Eater… and Dumbledore… he trusts even less.

So, he doesn't go in…

Instead, he goes to The Room of Requirement to see the cabinet.

It still standing there… dark and threatening… but it's not impossible to fix anymore.

He knows how to do it… they figured it out with her… but he doesn't want to.

He's not going to!

Not yet at least.

There is time… it's just the beginning of the year… he has time to pretend he's putting his all into it.

Maybe the time gives him an opportunity to think.

What is it he wants out of life?

What is it he can do?

The answers felt so much simpler when there was just the two of them and their silent castle… When there were so much fewer things to want from life… when there were no people in danger because of his decisions… when she was there with him.

She made things feel right.

And now she exists only in his memories… and stored in a tiny bottle around his neck.

From there, it's so much harder to find her… like she's already slipping away.

.

.

.

The mark in his hand burns… not like when He's calling… but like reminding him it's there.

He had forgotten how it felt, to have this constant burning reminder.

It burned for a while in there too… but as days went by, the mark became just an ugly tattoo.

It stopped to mean anything.

She used to study it closely sometimes.

"It's not even that ugly." She had said one day, "I mean, I've seen worse."

He had laughed…

Laughing felt foreign now… like he couldn't remember how to do it…

But then, he had laughed, "It's not that bad because you've seen worse? You really need to work on your compliments, Granger!"

She was right though… it wasn't that bad… because it meant nothing.

Now, he sits on his bed and stares at the skull and the snake.

He hates it! Hates it more than anything!

It's not that ugly… bullshit!

It's the worse tattoo he could have! And it'll never go away!

He drags his nails along the mark… willing to tear it off with his bare hands.

He'll never be rid of Voldemort… not as long as he has this.

Thinking of anything else is just fooling himself!

The scratches his fingers left draw blood… and he stares as it drips along his wrist, drawing red lines across the skull.

.

.

.

Even now that he doesn't have to worry about repairing the cabinet, he still goes to the library.

If he needs to go through every single book they already went through, to find any hint what happened, he'll do it!

If there's any chance to make her remember again, he'll find it!

It felt hopeless the first time… and there were two of them… but that doesn't stop him!

So, he reads… and reads…and reads… so much his head is spinning.

But nothing quite matches to what they went through.

She… or this reality's version of her… is there too.

He never noticed how much she actually spends time in the library.

But she never looks at him twice… and even if he yearns to talk to her… misses her worse every day… he doesn't either.

Because this is not the girl he misses! Even if everything she is, feels so familiar… she's not the same girl.

That's what he tells himself over and over again.

And the books give him nothing new.

Of course, they don't!

If there would have been answers they would have found them already!

But he had hoped…

Did he never learn? Hoping was for fools!

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.

.

Letters from his parents don't make it any easier.

Pressure.

That's what reads between the lines.

His father is in Azkaban, but he can still read him from his mother's handwriting.

Make the family proud, Dear.

Family stands together, always.

He closes his eyes and remembers the desperation that made him climb the tower that night.

The feeling of being locked in with no way out… he had already made peace with it… was already dead… until she dragged him back up and back to life.

But now… squeezing the paper in his hand… he's just as locked in as he was then.

Nothing's better…

He dashes through the corridors… willing to get away! Anywhere! away!

He runs until he finds himself from an empty toilet.

"This is girl's lavatory." An irritated ghost, that reminds him of Potter, complains.

But he doesn't care… the ghost being here tells him enough that this toilet is not on use.

No one will bother him here!

He can't breathe.

Black dots swim in his vision as he tries to draw breath.

He stumbles to the sink and tries to splash his face with cold water.

The world is just fucked up!

Fucked up! And there's nothing he can do!

Either way, someone's going to suffer.

Either way, someone gets killed!

Either way, he's the bad guy.

He hits his fist to the mirror.

The glass shatters in a thousand pieces and pain explodes through him.

But the pain is good! Pain is better than emptiness… better than despair.

"Malfoy?"

It's fucking Potter!

Potter of all people!

He turns around and raises his wand… trying to decide how badly he wants to hurt the fucking golden boy.

But Potter is faster.

And before he realizes what's happening… his bleeding out.

Dying! He's dying!

He didn't have to jump again! Potter did it for him!

How ironic.

He falls to the ground… and feels the blood pump out of his system.

With his last strength, he lifts his hand to the pendant around his neck… At least he's not alone… at least she's still with him.

He can almost hear her.

She's sitting on the ground… cradling his head on her lap... whispering that it'll be alright.

He can smell her scent… feel her soft fingers in his hair.

It doesn't matter Potter killed him… because he also gave him this last moment with her.

That's all he could ask for.


	11. Chapter 11

This is the first time she has no plan.

The first time ever she feels completely and utterly lost.

She has no idea what to do… how to proceed…

Like she's paralyzed… or only half alive… a ghost.

And in a way it's true… she's a ghost… walking among people, who walk through her.

They don't see her… hear her… feel her…

She's not really here, nor there.

So, she does the only thing that feels right: follows him around.

He's lost too… but he hides it better than she does… because of other people.

"Pretending is all I do in the real world."

That's what he told her… and that's what she sees now.

He's good at it… of course he is! He has done it for years.

But whenever he's alone… he's lost.

She sleeps in their bed… next to him.

But he can't feel her… and she can't feel him… but at least she can be close to him.

Mostly she doesn't talk to him… stays in her private silence and tries to read conversations form peoples' lips.

Only when they're alone… and when it gets unbearable…that's when she talks.

Like when he first goes to Dumbledore's door.

"GO!" She screams to his face when he starts to hesitate, "GO IN! I'm with you!"

Dumbledore might be the only one able to help them!

He might know what to do!

But Draco just paces back and forth behind his door.

And she screams until her voice is harsh… and then she cries and begs.

But he doesn't go… not that time… not any time after.

"I'm here, I'm with you! Please, Draco!"

But he doesn't hear her… doesn't know she's there… and can't do it alone.

.

.

.

Watching him breaks her heart.

Watching him talk to her, or the girl who looks like her… It shatters her whole being.

When he runs into her in the corridor the first day, she wants to punch herself.

"LOOK! You stupid bitch!" She screams to her stupid, ignorant face, "He needs help! LOOK BEYOND YOUR IDIOTIC PREJUDICE! Hypocrite!"

But the look in the eyes of the girl, she barely recognizes, is cold.

She'll never see.

No matter how she screams on this side… that girl will never see… she'll never have this time with him… she'll never understand.

Of course, he could make her see again… but she doubts he can act the same around that version of her as he did here.

Their time has passed… they had a year… And how she wishes she'd known how low their time was running.

She wishes she would have told him how she felt… because now it's too late.

She whispers it to him in the night.

Looking at him, lying on the bed with his eyes closed but not sleeping…

She reaches for him, "I love you, you know."

But just like before her fingers go through… like he's not really there.

She tells him every night… every time before she falls asleep cold and alone… she tells him.

And wishes more than anything that there was a way for him to hear.

It doesn't even feel enough.

There are so many things she wishes she would have told him.

I love you.

I miss you.

I was ready to share my life with you.

The silence was okay with you.

I was ready to live the rest of my life here with you.

I liked the thought of you being my family.

I could see the future… our future.

Even now, when I close my eyes, I can see them… our family.

But it hurts to think of all that… let alone say it aloud to the empty walls.

.

.

.

She feels guilty too… for leaving him alone like that… even though she knows it wasn't her fault.

But what if it was?

What if there was something she had missed, that caused this?

When he sits on his bed, staring at the mark on his hand, she thinks her heart is going to explode.

She'd do anything…ANYTHING! To get to him at that moment.

He watches as blood drips from the wounds he caused himself, and she sits beside him… tears falling.

"Don't… please don't." She cries, "It's just a brand… it doesn't define you. Please!"

She has lost count on how many times she tries to take his hands into hers.

When he falls asleep with tearstains on his face, she lies awake… feeling like the pain is just too much for her heart to take.

But it gets worse sometime later when he gets a letter from his parents and dashes away from the Hall into Moaning Myrtle's toilet.

One could think she'd gotten used to seeing him in pain by then… but no.

No matter how many hours she sits with him in the library… reading her own books as he reads his.

No matter how many times she watches him lie awake… no matter how many times he needs her and she just isn't there.

No matter how many times her confessions of love echo from empty walls…

She never gets used to seeing him crumble from inside.

But then Harry enters.

And before he realizes what's happening, she has seen the face of her best friend.

Before Draco turns around, she knows it's going to be ugly.

Before either says a word, she knows no good comes from this.

Draco's too torn… and Harry's too sure he is a Death Eater.

That moment she forgets they can't see her… or hear her.

"NO!" She yells and takes a step to stand before Draco, raising her hands to Harry's direction.

She doesn't recognize the spell Harry's lips form… Doesn't know the movement he makes.

But she feels it as the curse sweeps through her stomach… like a wave of energy… and before she even turns around, she knows it's bad.

Harry's eyes go wide.

"What did you do!?" She yells the same time she turns around.

And it's even worse than she expected.

He's standing still, eyes wide looking at the bloodstain appearing to his chest.

"NO!" She screams brokenly and takes a leap towards him the same moment he falls.

Harry is just standing there. Saying something she can't hear.

Her best friend Harry… good… pure… light Harry who shouldn't even be able to cause damage like this, with one movement.

Draco is bleeding out… drawing only light breaths… a pool of his own blood forming around him.

"Draco!" She's on her knees beside him calling his name again and again.

"DON'T JUST STAND THERE, YOU IDIOT!" She yells at Harry, knowing it's no use, "GET HELP!"

"Hermione."

Her eyes flick to Draco who has lifted his hand to the transformed vial around his neck… and whispered her name.

And she heard it!

"Yes," She whispers swallowing tears, "Yes, I'm here. Hold on! It's going to be okay."

She cradles his head on her lap and runs her fingers through his hair.

She doesn't even realize when Snape rushes in and starts to heal his wounds… but leans her head close to him… willing to feel his breath on her face.

"You're going to be okay. Just don't let go… don't give up."

He's taken to the hospital wing and she follows, sits beside his unconscious body.

The night is dark and empty and silent… the scar Harry's spell made runs across his chest… and she just can't bring herself to understand what Harry was thinking.

Without Snape's haste appearance Draco would have died… and Harry would have been responsible.

She doesn't recognize the spell he used… and that makes her wonder what has he been up to these months?

But the scar on Draco's chest is proving enough… it was something dark.

And Harry just used it without hesitation… even though she saw the shocked look on his face after he did it.

What if Harry had killed him?

Would she ever have been able to forgive him?

Does it even matter, because there's no certainty she could ever get back to ask him what he was doing?

Minutes tick away… dark hours of the night turn in the faint light of the dawn… and she watches his chest rising and falling…

That's when she makes a decision:

This can't go on!

Either way, this half-life she lives, needs to end!

She can't keep watching everyone throw their life away and not be able to do anything about it.

One way or another, she needs to get away!

So, she gets up… tries to kiss his cheek… but she's a ghost yet again… How was she able to touch him in the bathroom? She has no idea… and it does no good to think about it now!

With one last look into his direction… she leaves.

Doesn't stop before she's before the clock… whatever happens, she can't take this anymore.

She raises her wand and aims an exploding spell to the fucking ticking torture device before her.

The sound it makes rings around the castle… a boom that rocks its very core.

It throws her on the ground and fills the room with smoke.

The last thing she hears before the world goes black is the tolling, that echoes in the silence.

Like the bells of doom.

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.

.

"Hermione?"

Someone is shaking her.

She opens her eyes and blinks… once… twice…

The light almost blinds her.

There's a blue sky above and she can hear the waves.

Tropic…

The beach she dreamed before this all began.

In a dream she was alone…

She blinks again and a face swims in her vision.

Grey worried eyes… blond hair glistering in the sunlight.

Oh, this makes sense! It's a dream yet again.

She lifts her hand to touch his face.

"I miss you." She whispers as her fingers feel his skin.

How she misses being able to touch him!

At least her dreams still make him real.

"Are you hurt?" He demands.

She shakes her head against the white sand.

But before she gets to do anything else, he swipes her off the ground and pulls her close.

Let it be just a dream! He's here and she's able to touch him! Let it be not real… but right now, it feels more real than in months.

So, she puts her hands around his neck and clings on.

He feels so familiar… smells so familiar… she buries her face to his chest and breathes him in.

"It's been so hard without you." He whispers to her hair, "I just wish you'd remember…"

It takes a moment before she realizes what he's saying and lifts her head to look at him.

"I remember!"

"No… not in real life… We got back. I'm still like I was the day I left, but you're like you never went through all that with me." He looks down at her sadly, "You don't have your vial either… there's no way I can make you remember."

He's even talking like his real… her dreams of him were never this real before.

He shouldn't be so sad in her dream! Even if it's just a dream he's with her now!

And she has missed him so so much!

She lifts her hand to caress his cheek, "No, it's not me! I was left behind! I've been trapped somewhere in the middle for ages! I can see you, but you can't see me! I can't hear you! I can't talk to you! It's torture Draco! Yesterday I watched you nearly get killed and couldn't do anything!"

He laughs humorlessly, "You don't know how I wish that would be true."

"It is true!" She's not sure why she has to try an prove her dream what she went through is real.

He's still shaking his head, "You're just a dream!"

Okay, now it was getting weird.

Him in her dream telling her she's just a dream?

"This is my dream! So actually, you're the one, who is not real, here!"

"I need to ask Madam Pomfrey what she gave me! This stuff is great." He mutters under his breath.

She wiggles free from his hold and stands up.

He stays on the sand shaking his head.

He's wearing a white button-down shirt and beige chinos… his sleeves are rolled up and hair looks a little sunburned.

She's not sure he could look more perfect… but the air around them is weird.

It's unlike any dream she's ever had.

"No! Harry hit you with some dark curse and I was sitting beside you in the hospital! And then I decided I've had enough and went to blow up the clock. I must have blacked out because I woke up here!"

He gets up too, brows furrowed.

"I watched you go through all that alone! I watched you talk to me… to the version of me who didn't know you! I watched you behind Dumbledore's door! And your mark! How you scarred it! I've been a ghost Draco! So, let me have this dream with you and don't fight me!"

He's standing so close his breath is on her face, "This is a dream I'm having in the hospital wing."

They're staring at each other for a while.

She feels like her heart might jump out her chest.

Because if he's sure he is the one having this dream… and she's sure this is her dream too… could it be?

"Are we both here?" She whispers testing the ground.

He doesn't answer but kisses her… melts their lips together.

And it doesn't feel like a dream… it feels real!

Like it's really him! Really his lips! Really his hands!

When he lets go his eyes are dark… and so familiar.

She starts to cry… throws her hands around him and cries against his neck.

This is him!

Really him!

They're together again!

Where are they? and how they got there? and what on earth happened again?

None of it matters now!

She doesn't care!

It doesn't matter if this is a deserted island full of dangers… if it's just a beach with burning sun… it doesn't matter!

He's here! And he can see her! Feel her! Touch her!

She's not a ghost here!

"I missed you so much!" He mumbles in her hair, "I thought it was all gone."

She squeezes him harder, "I'm here now… you're here. It'll work out… as long as we're together."

They stand there… Under the burning sun, waves crashing the shore, the tropic breeze humming in the palm trees… just holding each other for a long time.

It's so good… to just breathe him in and let the feeling she has really gotten him back, sink in.

After what feels like hours, she lifts her face to him.

"I love you." She tells him, "I've told you every night… you just couldn't hear me."

He dips his face down to her and kisses her…tenderly, desperately… like he's been waiting his whole life for just this kiss.


	12. Chapter 12

They sit on the beach… she's leaning her head to his shoulder… unsure what they should do next.

Unsure what this all means?

"I dreamed of this beach the night all this began." She tells him.

"So did I." He mutters silently, "But it was empty."

"So was mine."

She shakes her head, "None of this makes sense."

It's almost as if the universe is playing with them… throwing them from one scenario to another… adding details that don't really make sense.

"Are we dead?" She asks, not really waiting for an answer, "I mean what if we both died and this is some sort of… in between?"

"Doesn't explain the other things. The silent castle, the clock… me going back and you staying behind."

"I know! But nothing adds up! I wish I knew what happens next." She huffs frustrated.

"Don't we all?"

She considers his words… maybe he's right… don't we all want to know what happens next?

"So, what now?"

He gets up and offers her his hand, "Come on."

The tropical waves greet them when they walk to the clear water.

Sun shines down at them as they float on the sea…

His lips taste like salt as he kisses her.

And she wraps her legs around him… letting her hands run on his hair marred with sea salt.

"We need to figure out what to do next…" She whispers in between kisses.

But truthfully, she doesn't really want to stop… it's been too long since she was last able to touch him… to be held by him.

"I wish to be just left in peace!" He mutters.

So does she!

How much she'd give to be able to not to worry all the time?

How much she'd be willing to let go of if she wouldn't have to spend all her time trying to figure out what this all means?

"Draco." She lets go of him and pauses his greedy hands.

There's no time to waste! No matter how tempting it is to just forget all their worries and let go!

"If this is a dream, we might wake up any second! We need to at least make a plan what we do if that happens!"

He groans… but doesn't argue.

So, they make their way back to the beach.

"First of all, you must go to Dumbledore!"

He stares at the horizon, not saying a word.

"He'll know what to do! To keep your family safe."

He turns to her, "What about this?" He waves his hand.

Yes, maybe Dumbledore would know what all this means, but she needs to get him to safety first!

"We'll think about that later." She tells him sternly.

"When is later?"

She doesn't answer because she doesn't know… but getting him as far away from Voldemort as possible should be the number one priority.

"Get yourself and your family safe first!"

"What about you?"

"As far as everyone knows, I'm fine and nothing has changed!"

He looks at her then… long and calculating, "But it's not true."

"We don't even know if I'm real!" Her voice is desperate… because that's what she has started to think… that she's not real… the real her is the girl in Gryffindor…

Maybe she can't get back to life as this version of her… but at least she can save him! She can give him a future without the Death Eater burden.

He has turned fully to her, "You are real!"

"To you! And in this reality. But we don't know what this is!"

He's shaking his head, "Don't!"

She takes his hand, but he yanks it away, "You've given up?! You don't think you could get back!"

"I have no idea how to."

"You can't give up!" His voice sounds pleading, and it frightens her… he's never begging.

He can't be begging! He needs to stay strong and do what needs to be done!

"No! You can't" She tells him, "because you're the one living! And because this is the only way! Draco, I need you to stay strong and save yourself! You can't see me but I'm with you. I promise! You're the one living! Then live!"

She doesn't beg him… she doesn't plead… she orders! Leaves him no room for argument.

"If we wake up, and nothing has changed you go to Dumbledore! Promise me!" She takes his face in between her hands and forces him to look at her, "I want your word, Draco!"

"What good is my word to you?" He whispers.

And an image of him on top of the Astronomy tower, the night he tried to end it, flashes her mind.

"It's not what it is to me." She tells him, "It's what it is to you"

Silence follows her words.

Then he sighs, "Fine, you have my word."

She smiles at him sadly and leans in to put her forehead against his.

"You can do it! I know you can. Just don't turn back! Don't hesitate. It'll be worse if you don't try."

He nods slightly.

"And Draco…" She swallows, "I love you… no matter what happens in the real world, no matter if that version of me won't remember that I do. But she's me after all… and if she would have gone through what we went through, she'd love you too! You're a good man if you let yourself be!"

She tries so hard not to cry… so hard not to feel like she's telling him goodbye.

"We'll fix this." He lifts his hand to her cheek.

She wants to believe that too… so badly it feels like a physical pain.

"I wish…" She starts but he kisses her silent.

"Don't wish… it'll do no good to anyone."

The salt of the sea and her tears mix on their lips as she pulls him close.

Kisses him as if she might never be able to do that again.

Because she's no fool… she knows that drams end eventually.

.

.

.

They lie in each other's arms on the golden sand as the sun goes down.

And when she opens her eyes the next time, she's in the clock room, in silence, without him, once again.

The clock seems unharmed… her side still ticking, his staying silent.

So, her explosion did nothing but knock her out?

Let her see him…

Was it real?

Was he really there?

She gets up and leans to the wall for support.

Her head is swimming and the images of the beach and the castle blur together… but she has no time to stand here.

He's still in the hospital wing! And she needs to go make sure he heard what she told him.

The people in the corridors make her head spin only faster… but she doesn't stop.

She promised him she'll be with him… and she has no intention to break that promise!

When she stumbles to the Hospital wing, he's sitting on the bed.

"Hermione?" He whispers looking around like expecting to see her.

It takes a while for her to drag herself next to his bed and fall to the empty chair.

Only then does she realize… she can hear him!?

The corridors were still silent! She couldn't hear other people.

But now! As he whispers her name again. She can hear it!

Maybe he can hear her too!

"YES," She whimpers, "I'm right here."

But it was too good to be true after all… he keeps on looking around, apparently not hearing her.

She hears him… but to him, she's still as nonexistent as before.

"Fuck." She swears and presses her head to the side of his bed.

After a while, he gives up trying to call her and lays back in the bed, staring at the ceiling.

For a moment she's grateful he doesn't rush away the moment he realizes he can't talk to her… because she isn't sure she could move just yet.

"What kind of a sleeping potion you gave me?"

She's startled from her stupor by his voice… and when she lifts her head, she realizes Madam Pomfrey has entered the room.

She sees her lips move as she answers… but Draco is the only person she can hear.

"Are you sure?" He asks with a disbelieving look, "I mean I did have a dream."

Pomfrey had given him Dreamless sleep?

Things just got weirder and weirder…

He stumbles up from the bed and dismisses the healer with a wave of his hand, "I need to go to Dumbledore!"

She raises to follow him as he yells across his shoulder, "I don't care if he's coming to see me! I need to see him now!"

Lucky he's not on his best condition either… otherwise, it would be impossible for her to follow him with her spinning head… but his injury from last night slows him down enough.

She wonders if he realized he left in hospital robes… but it doesn't seem to bother him.

People stop to stare as he dashes past though… she sees their mouths moving but doesn't know if they're talking to each other or to him.

When they finally make it to the Headmasters door, it's like he's been expecting them…or him… or someone. Because the gargoyle jumps from their way without even asking for a password.

Climbing up the stairs he glances once across his shoulder, like making sure she's there. But all she can do is to hope he believed what she said about her being there, even if he can't see her.

Dumbledore stands behind his desk. Again, almost like waiting for something.

She hopes to God, he'll understand.

Draco has stopped by the stairs and Dumbledore has said something.

And she's already irritated that she can't hear him.

"I don't care what Potter did, Professor!" Draco says hastily and out of breath, "I have more important things to discuss!"

Only then does she realize they didn't exchange a word about Harry last night… Almost like she forgot her best friend just tried to kill Draco with a dark curse.

But there were more important things than Harry now… Weren't there?

This was more important… wasn't it?

But she doesn't have time to think about Harry now! Because Draco is really telling Dumbledore what's going on.

Not about their adventures through weird dreams and timelines… but about his mission and the threat on his and his family's life.

The headmaster is listening, face serious but eyes twinkling… like he knew all this already.

And the further Draco talks she begins to suspect…

"You knew?" She whispers… disbelief filling her.

Was he just waiting for Draco's confession?

If Draco wouldn't have come, would they have let him carry on without hesitation?

She goes to stand behind Draco, who is now sitting on one of the chairs… and tries to put her hand on his shoulder for support… but of course, she can't.

Now Dumbledore is talking, and she tries her best to read his lips… but it feels impossible… so she settles in studying the expressions on Draco's face to guess what's being said to him.

"Do nothing?" He asks after a while with disbelief.

She flicks her head back to Dumbledore.

Do nothing? Did he just tell Draco to do nothing?

"You want me to carry on like it was all normal? To fix the cabinet that makes it possible for Death Eaters to get in? To… to pretend I'm still trying to kill you?"

"WHAT?" She feels like his last words just made her lost all her self-control, "Carry on like it was normal? NO!"

She goes to stand before the Headmaster, "You can't do that! You need to help him! If he was Harry, you'd help him! Now you tell him to carry on!? He doesn't want to be on Voldemort's side! It's killing him! And you tell him to carry on!? To put himself and everyone he holds dear on the line? FOR WHAT?!"

But of course, no one hears her.

Draco has gotten up to his feet, "So you'll get them to safety?" He's asking now, "I'll do what you told me to, and you'll make sure we're safe?"

Dumbledore nods.

But she doesn't want to take it!

"No! That's not fair! Do you know what he's going through? The pressure they put on him? HE'S SIXTEEN! You're supposed to save him! Not make him your spy! HELP HIM! I PROMISED HIM, YOU'D HELP HIM OUT OF THIS! You can't do this!"

She doesn't even realize Draco already left the room.

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.

.

Betrayed!

That's how she feels as she follows him to his dormitory.

Betrayed by the one man she thought would no doubt help them… him…

Dumbledore was not supposed to make Draco a double agent! He was supposed to get him and his family safe! Not in more danger!

How could he do that!?

"Not now. I need to go lie down for a bit." Draco's saying to his friends as he passes them and draws the curtains around his bed.

He lays down, breathing hard, staring at the ceiling… and she can't even begin to understand all that's going on his head.

She hopes so much she could be there for him… but all she can do is to lay down next to him and hope he believed she's with him!

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.

.

In the afternoon Snape comes to get him to tell what happened with Harry in the bathroom.

He refuses.

He tells the Professor that it was an accident and he doesn't blame Harry for it.

She sits on his bed and stares at him.

So does Snape… Draco Malfoy doesn't want to hold Harry Potter responsible for nearly killing him?

That's unheard of!

She wonders if it's because of her?

Or because of Dumbledore's recent words?

Or their time in the silence?

How she hopes he could hear her so that she could ask!

In the night she falls asleep next to him again.

Hoping to wake up on a tropical beach once more.

She doesn't… but in the dark dormitory in the middle of the night.

He's still sleeping… uneasily tossing around the bed.

"Fuck!" She swears aloud.

Should have known it's not that easy!

Getting to that beach with him need more than just falling asleep.

She sits up.

Does one of them need to be near death? Or what?

How does she get to share a dream with him!?

Should she try to hurt herself to get to him?

Somehow it sounds unwise… to hurt herself where no one can help her.

"Think!" She orders herself, "What did you do to get there, last time?"

The clock room! Maybe it has something to do with it!

She gets up and makes her way upstairs.

Last time she tried to explode it… should she do it again?

Or maybe sleeping here is enough?

Deciding it's worth a try she conjures a mattress for herself and lies down.

After a minute… or maybe an hour… she wakes up staring at the familiar blue sky.

"It worked!" She shoots up, looking around for him.

The beach looks deserted once again.

Maybe she celebrated too soon… maybe he wasn't there after all.

She stands up and starts to walk along the beach.

It's the most beautiful, serene beach she has ever seen, but she has no time to awe it.

The only reason she even wants to be here is to find him!

A little further there's a long pier reaching for the sea.

And there he is!

Sitting on the edge, waving his legs above the water, staring at the endless sea.

"Draco!" She calls for him as she makes a run for it.

He doesn't look at her as she reaches him… but keeps staring to the blue waves.

It pains her to see him like this… this broken… when all she wanted to do was to make him whole again!

"Draco." She says again softly and sits next to him.

"I have to do it anyway…" He says… still not looking at her.

"I know… I heard you." She too looks to the wide offering of the sea, "It was new… I could hear you… no one else… but you… and I was there… all the way… I know what happened."

They sit in silence for a while.

"I'm sorry." She tells him silently and he glances at her.

"What for?"

"For trusting him… and making you trust him… I'm sorry you still have to keep on serving Voldemort."

He shrugs, "Dumbledore did promise to get me out of it eventually."

It's not enough…. she thinks bitterly… I wanted you safe now! First Harry… now you.

"He's using you… in a war." She shakes her head, "I don't like it."

He laughs humorlessly, "Nothing much we can do…"

Nothing much but to do what they were told to.

She takes his hand, "I won't leave you alone! I'll be with you! I think I know how I can get to this dream now! We'll get through this! Like we got through the silence!"

She's not sure if it's him or herself she tries to convince.

He huffs, "I'd take the silence over this anytime!"

"So would I! But it's not an option now." She hopes he would look at her… but he still hasn't.

"I'm with you Draco! You'll get through this! I'll never give up. I promise!"

At that, he turns to her and puts his head on her shoulder, and she pulls him closer into her arms.

And they hold each other… in this half dream… this weird, twisted reality…

Family stands together…

And she'll stand with him… even if it takes all of her to do it… even if she'll never get back to real life again…even if it's the last thing she'll do, she'll make sure he survives! That he gets to live!

Because he deserves so much more… so much better!


	13. Chapter 13

She's not sure if it's worse for him… who has to go through it all… or her… who has to stand by and watch.

Without their shared dreams on the beach, she thinks she wouldn't make it… that there'd be a limit how much she can watch and do nothing.

She reads his letters over his shoulder… and in the night holds him on the sand when he tries to calm his ragged breathing.

And all she can do is give him her opinion and then assure him that she's with him… that he's not alone.

But he is… so alone...

His friends seem to avoid him… maybe it's out of fear… or respect…

She stands in the middle of their dormitory and tells them what shitty friends they are.

"Can't you see his suffering? That he needs a friend?" She asks to Blaise's face.

"Come on! Talk to him even! How much does it need?! It doesn't mean you have to help him with what he does! Just talk to him!" She urges Theo by the Slytherin table.

Then she follows Herself to the library and sits next to her on the table, "Yes, Malfoy's up to something, but it's not what you think! Help him! He needs you! Aren't you the clever one? Figure it out!"

"LOOK WHAT YOU'RE DOING TO HIM!" She screams to Dumbledore in the middle of dinner in the Great Hall, "LOOK AT HIM! HOW MUCH MORE DO YOU THINK HE CAN TAKE!? I TRUSTED YOU! HARRY TRUSTS YOU! DO SOMETHING!"

No one reacts… of course, no one does… to them, she doesn't exist.

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.

.

He paces along the beach…she's sitting on the sand looking at him.

"Should I just fix it already?" He asks as he walks… it's a rhetorical question…he's not waiting for her opinion, because they've been through it a hundred times.

She hates it that these decisions are on them to make… him going to Dumbledore should have ended this... should have given them answers.

He sits next to her.

"They want me to go home on Easter holiday." He says quietly, "He'll be there… they want to make sure I haven't forgotten what I'm to do."

She turns to him… not really sure what she can say.

They're going to bring him in front of Voldemort…and there's nothing she can do to stop it… no comfort she can give to him.

"I'll be with you…" She whispers taking his hand, but he shakes his head.

"You won't be… not there."

"Of course, I will!" She argues.

"No." He looks at her then, and everything about him tells her it's non-negotiable.

If it's out of some noble idea of keeping her out of harm's way, she's not going to take it!

She's invisible anyway! Who could hurt her?!

Surely not even Voldemort is that powerful…

But then he elaborates: "You can't leave the castle, remember?"

He's right!

They've tested it… she can't follow him outside! She can't get past the front door… there's no way she can follow him!

He has to go alone.

"Do you think this dream thing works if I'm not in the castle?"

She's not sure if he's asking her… or just thinking aloud.

She doesn't answer, because she has no idea.

All they can do is to hope… all she can do is hope he doesn't have to do it alone.

The night before he leaves is almost the worst one yet.

He doesn't talk much, and she doesn't have words to comfort him… to assure him.

What can you say when you send someone to lie to the Dark Lord? When you know, that if something goes wrong, he's as good as dead?

As the night draws closer to the dawn the fear in her chest feels like bursting out.

What if he can't do it? What if he'll never come back?

She holds him close and hopes to freeze the time… to stay on this beach with him forever… because living in a world without him, feels unbearable.

He's been the only one she has for so long… she thinks she'll never recover losing him… even if she gets back to the real world… she'll never be whole if he's gone.

"Please come back." She whimpers weakly… even if she decided to stay strong… she's now breaking down.

He just holds her tighter… and she knows it's because he can't promise anything… he can't tell her it'll be alright when he doesn't know for sure.

That's for Harry and Ron… telling her things will be alright when everything seems bad… but not Draco.

Draco never lies to her… he never gives her false hope.

It's painful… but it's sincere.

In the last moments before the burning sun dips to the horizon he buries both his hands and his face to her hair.

Breathes her in… and she puts her face against his chest and does the same.

He is hers… nothing, nowhere, can change that.

"I love you" He whispers so silently she barely hears, then plants one soft kiss on her lips… and he's gone.

She falls on her knees to the sand… and wakes up in the clock room only seconds later.

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.

.

The Dreams don't work when he's gone.

She sleeps in the clock room and dreams of empty castle and corridors… but not the beach.

She's alone… in the silence.

In the lonely hours of the day, she turns the vial in her hands hoping to have a pensieve to see him again…

Not a minute goes by she doesn't miss him.

To keep herself sane she follows people around… tires to read conversations from their lips… fails… and gives up.

Then she tries to spend her time in the library… but can't really concentrate.

This is a new special kind of torture… being alone in the middle of the crowd… where no one sees her, no one hears her… no one even knows she's there!

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.

.

He does come back… in one piece and less damaged she feared he'll be.

What he has to tell her, won't make things better though.

They've set a date… a date the Death Eaters will infiltrate the castle through the Room of Requirement.

"We need to tell the date to someone!" She tells him straight away.

And to her surprise, he agrees without arguing… but he refuses to go to Dumbledore.

"Write a letter?" She suggests.

"Too risky…"

Yes, it is… she wants to slap herself for even thinking that.

"Snape?"

"He offers his help constantly… but he might sell me out."

"Would he really?"

Snape is his godfather, after all…

He shakes his head, "Can't count on it."

She stays silent for a while and then her face brightens, "You could tell me! I mean her… the version of me on your timeline!"

"She'll never believe me."

It feels weird to refer to herself as 'She'… but to them, she's a different person.

But at least she knows that girl!

She knows how curious she is… and how right-minded.

She would never give information like that a secret!

"Maybe she won't! But she can't ignore it! It's too risky to just not tell anyone!"

It takes some convincing… but finally, he does agree.

And the next day she follows him as he stops her on the corridor.

"Granger," He grabs the girl's arm to make her pay attention.

"Let go of me Malfoy!" She spits immediately.

"No, you listen to me!" He hisses.

And then he tells her… the date, the plan, even that Dumbledore knows but has chosen to do nothing.

With hasty cold voice, he speaks only what is necessary and then lets her hand go.

"You're lying."

"Why would I bother, Granger?"

She shakes her head.

"If someone finds out I told you I'll be dead… so be careful what you do with the information."

Then he walks away and leaves the girl standing in the corridor… probably wondering what she should do now.

.

.

.

They don't know what she did with the information.

Because she can follow her… but can't hear her…So she doesn't know whether she told someone or not.

They can only hope.

"it's still a week away! They have time to react!" She tells him trustingly.

"You still put too much faith into Dumbledore." He says bitterly.

"Well, what else can we do?"

They've been through this too… there's really not much else.

They need to trust that Dumbledore has a plan.

She's more certain about the headmaster than he is.

Dumbledore and the Order are really their only hope, even he can't argue that.

But it all goes to hell… because the next day he gets a letter: TONIGHT. The Astronomy tower at midnight.

And just like that, all their plans crumble to the ground… everything they prepared together doesn't count anymore.

Because the date has changed, and no one is prepared!

He's walking circles in the bathroom and she can do nothing but sit by numbly and watch.

"What do I do? Just go through with it? I can't do it! I can't kill anyone!"

"Breathe." She says talking more to herself than him… not that he could hear her anyway… "Think!"

"What if I just jump? Like I planned to?"

She jumps up immediately, "NO YOU CAN'T! DON'T EVEN DREAM ABOUT IT! YOU PROMISED ME!"

Suddenly he looks straight at her and huffs, "Bet you're telling me to not even dream about it?"

"Yes, That's right! You can't give up!"

He shrugs slightly… "Guess I have no option but to trust you… and because you still trust the old fool has some grand plan for me, I just go up there and pray."

He has told that to her before: I just go through with it and pray.

Because he trusts her… and she hopes she's worth that trust.

By midnight they're up in the tower… but when Dumbledore emerges, she knows all hope is lost.

He looks broken… nothing like the man she remembers him being.

And the way he talks to Draco feels like he's begging him.

He promises protection… but it doesn't sound real… why didn't he offer protection when Draco asked for it?

The Death Eaters are coming…no one knows… they think Draco set it up…leaking a wrong date… and Dumbledore can't protect the castle!

Everyone is in danger… and still, all she cares about is Draco.

Draco who's desperately showing the headmaster his mark now.

She sees it in the old man's eyes… Draco is beyond saving.

Snape enters and she's screaming.

To Dumbledore, to Snape… to Draco, to herself.

The words don't even make sense but she's still trying… maybe she could confuse them long enough to… she doesn't even know what… to just end this horrible situation where there are only losers.

It all falls to pieces in front of her.

Like a nightmare… but too horrible for anyone to endure!

The Death Eaters come.

Bellatrix urges Draco to do it… she can see the victory in the mad witches' eyes… Draco's wand hand shakes… and she hopes she could just take him and disappear! To get back to their silent castle and be lost there forever!

Snape waves his wand… and Dumbledore falls.

Dumbledore… their only hope… is dead.

She's standing in the middle of it all… feeling like she's dead too… Like the world has turned all black and hopeless.

Snape is leading Draco off the tower, and she turns to follow.

But she doesn't get far… because her frozen feet betray her on the stairs.

She trips and falls… flies headfirst down the stairs.

The last sound she hears before the world around her disappears is a crack of glass breaking.

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.

.

"NO!" She screams as she lands to the beach.

"NONONO!"

She's on her knees on the sand screaming.

"LET ME BACK!" She yells

And then she screams his name… over and over… like he could hear her…

But on the other side, he is running for his life… and no one will truly help him now.

This is the last moment she wants to leave him on his own.

"LET ME BACK! PLEASE!" She screams again to the sky.

Her voice is desperate and shaking… tears in her eyes.

Please, please, please… let me to him! He has no one else!

No one else knows!

No one else sees!

No one else understands!

Only then does she realize the smoke.

The thick white cloud swirling around the palm trees… approaching her.

She stands up and looks around.

And what she sees chills her bones: It's almost like the scenery is shrinking.

The sea coming closer and the edges of the horizon blurring around her.

There's nowhere to run… nothing she can do but stand and wait for the dream around her collapse.

She closes her eyes.

Listens to her own heartbeat on her ears… and thinks of him… only him.

And the time they had… how happy she was with him.

And how it all ends now.

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.

When she comes to, there's a bright light on her eyes.

"Test Subject 103 Hermione Granger is waking up"

"Declaring the Department Of Mysteries timeline experiment 3.05 ended."


	14. Chapter 14

**A/N: ****Again, thank you so much for supporting my story! I love your comments! Keep them coming! **

**Kisses! **

**I'm so exited! I hope you're too! Here comes the revelation!**

* * *

4 years 3 months and 25 days… that's how long it's been since the war.

She's sitting by her desk in the ministry, staring to the furthest wall.

Was this what she wanted?

Is this how her life was supposed to go?

It's been 3 months and 25 days since she broke up with Ron.

3 months and 25 days… and she doesn't feel like this is her life.

It's not the break up that bothers her… they should have done it months… maybe years ago.

She did love him…still does… but there was always something not quite right about him... Not him in person… but him for her.

Something…some feeling… some… something she missed…and tried to find from him… but couldn't.

So, she gave up.

Told him they wanted completely different things and moved out.

But now…almost 4 months later she still doesn't know what it is she truly wants.

What's the part of her life she seems to be missing? The cause of this hole in her soul she can't fulfill?

So, she sits there… knowing she should work… but not feeling like working.

That's when Draco Malfoy knocks at her office door.

He works at the ministry too… she knows that… sees him in the cafeteria at lunches.

They never talk… but she knows he did something for the ministry after his trials to make amends and that's how he got the job.

Sometimes she feels he's watching her… but when she turns to look, he's having a conversation with his colloquies, not paying any attention to her.

Besides, why would he?

They don't know each other… they fought on different sides of the war… although she did speak for him in the trial because she believed he did what he did under immense pressure…and he was just a teen then anyway.

So, he got out with house arrest and some community service for the ministry.

That's about all she knows.

Although sometimes in her nightmares about the war, his grey eyes still haunt her.

The way he looked at her in the empty corridor on their sixth year and told her the exact date the Death Eaters were going to invade the castle… it was the wrong date… but she never believed he gave her the wrong date on purpose.

And after what Harry told them about the night Dumbledore died…she never could put the whole blame on him.

But now he's standing on her doorway… calculating look in his steely eyes.

"Morning Granger." He drawls and she's not sure why his voice alerts her so today…

"Morning… How can I help you?" She asks like it was any other ministry worker at her door.

He walks to her desk and puts a note on it.

"There's a timeline test in the Department of Mysteries. They're searching for volunteers. Thought you might be interested."

She looks at the paper on her desk and then to him.

"What made you think that?"

He shrugs casually, "Somehow this boring office work doesn't strike as your ultimate goal."

She's staring at him.

How would he know what her ultimate goal would be? He doesn't know her!

"What made you think this would be?" She asks suspiciously nodding to the paper.

"I thought you might relish the idea of finding new levels of magic."

He's right…. that's exactly the kind of thing she'd be interested in doing… but how does he know this? Why does he bother?

"Besides it only takes a couple of hours of your day…and pays fairly well." He turns to leave.

Suddenly she has this urge to stop him. To ask him more questions about how, after all this time, he came to think of her of all people!

"Think about it. You might find something about yourself that you've missed." He says and ads: "Come on, Granger. Live a little."

Then he walks away.

His words bother her the whole day.

Like there's something she should remember… but doesn't…

Something she has missed… wasn't that exactly what she had been thinking just mere minutes ago?

What was his deal?

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.

After two days she's sitting on the chair in the Department Of Mysteries, in line with other volunteers… waiting to sign some papers about the timeline experiment.

The room where they sit is wide with chairs lined up… but the most intruding thing is the clock.

A huge ticking thing with golden rims and no numbers… with hundreds of pointers moving on different speeds.

The ticking is the only sound in the quiet room… like a rhythm to their waiting.

Just by looking at it… you could never guess what it does… what it stands for… because she's sure it's more than just a clock.

Maybe she should apply to be an Unspeakable? Seems a lot more interesting than her current job…

Malfoy is not there with the other volunteers…

She doesn't know why she thought he'd be… almost like she anticipated to meet him here…

"Miss. Granger." They call her like a doctor to an appointment.

In the room, that looks just like her own office… they give her a thick layer of papers.

"Read them thoroughly and then I need you to sign here, here and here." The assistant taps the papers, "Take your time… make sure you understand everything."

It doesn't sound too exciting.

They'll put her to sleep for a couple of hours, and during that, send her consciousness to a different timeline. She's supposed to stay in that timeline for some amount of time… see how it differs from the one they're living now. They'll run some tests and so on… and when she returns, no matter how much time passed there, she would wake up in the afternoon of this same day she'd left. The usual time spent in another timeline is two or three days… a week is the maximum.

There's a list of warnings though… about darker timelines and stressful events there… about feeling detached after.

But after all, she gets a choice whether she wants to keep the memories of the timeline she visited or if she wants them obliviated.

So, there's no true risk… is there?

It sounds like an adventure!

She can feel the excitement bubble in her as she signs her name to the papers.

It's been so long since she did anything even remotely exciting.

After the war and the endless days in Horcrux hunt…she thought she needed peace!

But now she thinks it's been too long since her last adventure!

She goes to the experiment room… there are beds for them to be comfortable during their trip… and there's a clock too.

Similar to the one in the waiting hall.

She wants to ask about it… but doesn't get a chance.

"We'll send you to the between space at first. It'll look like a tropical beach, but you won't be staying there for long. It's just for the transaction from one timeline to another. When you arrive at the timeline you're supposed to study, you won't remember this timeline."

She nods… feeling giddy.

Adventures of the additional timeline, welcome!

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.

.

**5 hours later**

She's sitting on the bed in the Department of Mysteries, blinking.

Her head is spinning and memories of two different lives make her feel disoriented and confused.

"Miss Granger, welcome back!"

She looks to the woman standing next to her… somehow surprised she can hear her.

Nearly two years… that's how long she was gone in her mind… and here, almost no time has passed…

Two years… in silence…

Everything looks the same as the day she came here… but everything is different.

The castle… the silence… the dorms… the room… the tower…Draco…

Draco… she almost screams out loud.

Was any of it real?

Was he even real?

Was he just a creation of another timeline?

Was she supposed to go to the silence with only him as a company? Was that the timeline chosen for her?

What about all those months as a ghost? Living in two worlds and not really existing in either?

She puts her face to her hands to stop the spinning.

"When you're ready, the head Unspeakable Graywitch would like to speak with you." The woman tells her, and she nods faintly.

Then she's left alone… the ticking bangs her eardrums… making her remember the night it started.

Her memories are flying around like a flock of bats scared of sunrise.

Which of all that really happened and what is just a product of the experiment?

She remembers the day he asked her about her pendant… and remembers the day he told her about the attack… but now she has two memories about the events… the ones she lived through and then others when she was a ghost, screaming to herself to notice him.

Him…

Her heart aches when she thinks of him.

Coming back and realizing it wasn't real… doesn't take away what she felt for him… what she feels for him.

But is it really him she feels for?

The Draco of this timeline… the one she spoke for in the trials… who gave her the paper about the timeline experiments…does he go through his days without knowing any of this happened? Without knowing what they went through?

Will he never know how much she loved him?

"Come on, Granger. Live a little." His words come back to her now… and she realizes she has heard him say that once before… in a different time… in a different reality.

Could it be that some of him was real after all?

Is he still there? The boy she loved so… the boy she was ready to do anything for… the boy who she wanted to live so badly, she was ready to give up her own life… to live as a ghost… to not really exist, if it meant she got to be with him?

She needs to find him and ask… needs to make sure…

But first, she goes to the head Unspeakable Greywitch.

He's a middle-aged man… who looks more or less like all Unspeakables: Secretive and introverted… but powerful all the same.

"Miss Granger, please sit down."

She does as she's asked to… and waits. Because she has no idea what is expected of her.

"As you may have noticed your timeline experiment didn't go quite as planned."

The man looks at her with a serious face.

She's still not sure what she should say…so she waits for him to elaborate.

"You must understand, Miss Granger, that it's not very clear for us what really happened. But I'm trying my best to explain."

Then he tells her all the ways the experiment went wrong on her case:

The test subjects are supposed to stay in the alternate timeline for one-week maximum. But the minute they sent her away they noticed something was wrong. The silent castle she got sent to was not a real timeline at all… they were not exactly sure what it was, but it worked completely different than the timelines they usually used. One of the special features was that they couldn't fetch her back like they could everyone else.

"You must understand," Greywitch says again, "That we did everything we could to get you out of there as soon as possible."

So, they had used a timeline clock, similar to the ones they had on the walls, trying to stop her pointer to get her back. But it hadn't worked, obviously.

"We were not ready for what might happen when a person spends that much time in a different timeline. The final conclusion we could think of was that the memory vials you made, prevented us to touch the timeline you were in." Greywitch looks at her seriously.

Suddenly she remembers the sound of glass breaking when she fell down the stairs.

"I broke my vial? that's how you got me back?" She asks a million things running through her head.

The man nods.

"But I wasn't in the timeline I got sent to all that time? I was… I think I was… like a ghost… living in between two realities! Like I was watching the real timeline… how is that possible?"

"We still are not sure. Put the hypothesis is that by making the vials you bind yourself and Mr. Malfoy together somehow. And when we got Mr. Malfoy out, the vials still kept you linked."

His words sink in…slowly… "You got Mr. Malfoy out?" She repeats.

Greywitch nods, "Yes, you see, you two got trapped together. The experiments we did with the clock worked finally for him… taking him back here. But because of the mishap, somehow the version of him that was with you in the wrong timeline blended with the timeline we're living in… and he didn't lose the memories of the time he spent with you."

She doesn't quite understand what he's saying… "So, he… he remembered all of it… all this time?"

Greywitch nods, "Usually the events of the other timelines never blend with our original timeline. But somehow Mr. Malfoy really lived through all that happened in that timeline. He tells us that he knew it when he volunteered. That he had all those memories that didn't really make sense before he attended the experiment."

She's staring at the Unspeakable.

Wrong timeline blended with the timeline we're living in… he knew when he volunteered…

"Everything that happened… when I was trapped in between… really happened in the real timeline?"

The man nods again.

He asked for the vial… he stopped her in the corridor… he did all those things… because she told him to?

Everything they went through… going to Dumbledore and not getting any help… it all happened for real!

She was with him… in dreams…

"The dreams!" She thinks she sounds somehow broken now… "What were the dreams on the beach? They were real? He was really there?"

Did he go through their sixth year talking to the ghost of her every night?

"Yes. It seemed when you slept in the clock room, you were closer to getting back here… but we still think it was the power of your vials that made you impossible to reach."

She stands up, so hastily the chair she had been sitting on, falls to the ground.

"We understand if you want to press charges, but we'd like to remind this was a volunteer program…they always have risks." Grywitch says.

"No…" She shakes her head, "It doesn't matter… I understand! I… I have to go!"

She rushes out of the room… out of the Department and out the Ministry.

It's a clear autumn day as she steps out and takes a deep breath.

It was real… it wasn't supposed to be… but it was!

Everything they went through! He remembers as she does!

Except… he has remembered it since the sixth year, while she had no idea any of it happened before this day!

She feels like falling… because she promised to him… she swore she'd be with him… and she left him!

A sob escapes her lips and she lifts her hand to cover her face.

The sixth year when Harry was sure Draco was a Death Eater… he went to Dumbledore for help.

He sat on his bed every night… desperately willing to be somewhere else… to be someone else… without the burden, he had to carry.

He repaired the cabinet and warned her on the corridor… he climbed to the Astronomy Tower, still hoping for salvation… that never came.

And then… then she knows only what she saw from afar… then the Dark Lord lived at his house… then he came back to school and… had no choice but to stand with Slytherin… then he watched as she got tortured in his house… then he got in the battle…

And no one knew he never wanted to fight for Voldemort! No one knew! He had no one!

She left him!

She loved him more than anything and for four years she lived a life where she didn't know!

The hole in her soul… the feeling of missing something… was it him the whole time?

And now…What did he think of her now? Did he blame her for leaving him alone?

She thinks of the day he came to her door… he knew then already… he knew that if she participated, she'd remember.

He wanted her to volunteer! He had to know what he was doing!

She has to find him!


	15. Chapter 15

**HE **

He's running down the stairs of the Astronomy Tower.

Dumbledore is dead.

The only person here, who knew he wanted out of this sick war is dead.

And while he lived…he did nothing to help.

Snape is now guiding him along… no one pays them much attention.

Students on the hallways are confused.

He wants to yell at them to go back to their dorms and lock the doors.

But he can't.

Because that would give him away… and there's no way he can afford that now.

His only way of surviving alive… keeping his family alive… is to play this part of obedient Death Eater… AGAIN!

And by doing that, there's no way to make sure she is safe!

Even if the her who will soon fight in the corridor is not his girl… he's afraid that if she gets killed, all of her will stop to exist… ending all hope.

And he has no way to get to her! He has to trust she's safe in other hands… and he hates the idea!

They get to Hogsmeade and apparate to the Manor… his home… that feels so foreign now.

At least his mother is fine… rushing to greet him.

"I'm so proud of you dear!" She whispers to him… and he has an urge to tell her there's nothing to be proud of… he couldn't save them… any of them… even when he tried.

They sit in the drawing room… him and Snape and mother… waiting for news from Hogwarts.

All he wants to do is to go to bed… to get to their beach… to go to her!

He wants her in his arms… her comforting words… her… nothing but her.

She'll know what to say… she'll know how to proceed… she'll fill the gaping hole in his chest… she'll soothe his raging mind.

She'll keep him afloat!

"I'll never leave you" She'd tell him again… and with that, he'll survive to another day… no matter how dark.

"I'll be with you." She'd say, her hazel eyes shining with sincerity… and he wouldn't feel so alone.

But he doesn't get to sleep that night… or the next.

After the celebrations of Dumbledore's death… he lies in his bed… that doesn't feel like his bed anymore… and listens to Bellatrix's shrill voice sing outside.

They're still singing… songs of victory… planning to take over the ministry.

He listened to that for hours… until it was late enough to make an excuse to get to his room.

Then he lays in his bed…trying to force himself to sleep.

It's not working!

He's still awake… missing her… feeling like he might go crazy!

What if she's waiting for him, and he just can't get to her!?

When he finally falls asleep… in the early hours of the morning… he doesn't get to their beach.

Instead, his dreams are dark nightmares of Dumbledore falling off the tower… and then the old man turns to her.

And she's falling… he's trying to reach her… but his hands catch only thin air.

She falls… her hair flowing around her... her eyes wide, fixed on his.

He wakes up screaming.

.

.

.

He lives through the days of the summer like a ghost.

Not seeing, not feeling, not really paying attention to things around him.

Only when he's addressed directly, does he alert himself… gets his occlumency defenses up and acts like he's listening.

But it doesn't feel like living.

The darkness, that made him jump off the tower once already, swirls on the edges of his mind… and the world seems colorless… pointless… empty.

She's gone.

The light… the hope…only her presence gave him, is gone with her.

The dreams of the beach won't return… no matter what he does.

She's gone… and nothing is worth anything anymore.

Sometimes he sits on his bed in the night and talks to her… hoping she could still hear him… wishing she'd still somehow be there… even if he can't see her.

But as days go by… the hope dies.

And by the beginning of the seventh year…he'd be sure she was not real at all, if not for the vial around his neck.

At sleepless nights he sneaks into his mother's study… pours the memories in the small Pensieve and watches the best moments she stored for him.

Her tingling wild laugh as she splashes water on him in the prefect's bathroom.

Her eyes when she looks at him… her brilliant smile as she masters a new spell.

Her… twirling around in a blue summer dress… her irritated face when he made her ride a broom.

Her on top of the Astronomy Tower, fireworks flashing in her eyes.

Her soft lips on his… her delicate body moving with his.

Her sleeping in his arms.

Her hand taking his…reassuring: We're in this together. I'm with you… I'll never let go.

He could live a lifetime, just watching those memories play through over and over again.

But it has to stop… he has to collect the memory back, lock it around his neck and go through another day without her.

.

.

.

Going back to school is worse… because a small part of him hoped the dreams about the beach would return once there.

But they don't.

And the rest of her is gone too!

Her and Potter and Weasley, never come back.

So, she is gone… in every way possible… she's out of his life.

And still, the Slytherin common room… his bed… the library… every room… every corridor and staircase… every alcove… remind him of her… and the time the reality was only the two of them.

He trashes the Room of Requirement… smashes the furniture into small pieces… throws the little glass items to the walls and watches them break.

But it doesn't help… won't take away the pain.

And it gets worse by the day.

With Dumbledore gone, the school is a dark place under Death Eater rule… The only good thing seems to be the lines of Slytherin breaking a little.

He sees it in the frowns of his classmate's faces… in the ways they pretend they've forgotten their wands in the dorm.

When The Carrow twins start to make students torture each other, almost all seventh year Slytherins stop to leave their common room when it isn't necessary.

He doesn't question them… tries to follow their example when it's possible.

But it seems almost impossible for him to stand in the sidelines.

The Carrow's know his parents… they think his loyal… so they call him often.

Make him run their errands… perform as the leader of the remaining perfects… to monitor they give harsh enough punishments.

He's trapped… with no one to go to.

The only way he keeps on living… are the memories… her promise they'll get through it.

He wonders how long can he go on with just the image of her fierce eyes?

But he tries… spies on Neville Longbottom and Ginny Weasley to figure out when their secret resistance gathers… then sends the patrols to the opposite way.

Warns the first year Gryffindors on the corridor when the Carrow's are near… assures to Alecto Carrow, that the Slytherins are doing an excellent job on keeping the others in line.

Lies to everyone about everything… and feels like he's just a shell, running on automatic gear.

That's what he told her once: "Pretending is all I do in the real world…"

That's what he does.

.

.

.

Pansy is the only one who even tries to get to him.

Theo and Blaise seem to have given up months ago… but Pansy won't let go so easily.

She pushes herself to sit next to him in the armchair… puts her hand on his knee and purrs to his ear: "Why are you always so gloom Draco? We're on the winning side."

Her hand slides to his thigh and he yearns to push it away.

"Why don't we find somewhere more private and I'll make you forget your worries." Her voice drips suggestion.

He moves her hand away, "Not tonight, Pansy."

"Come on, Draco." She licks his earlobe… he feels like he's going to be sick… but stays static.

"I know you want to." Her hand is dangerously close to his crotch.

"No." He moves her hand away.

But she still doesn't give in… but picks herself up and straddles his hips.

Her puffy lips move close to his and he tries to lean as far away as he can.

All about her is just…wrong.

"Anything you want…" She whispers and tries to kiss him.

And even though he tried his best to contain himself… he now pushes her to the floor and stands up.

"No, Pansy… what part of that is so hard to understand?"

He leaves her staring behind him as he dashes to his dorm… draws the curtains around his bed and bends down to breathe.

Pansy might have thought she can seduce him… but all her closeness made him do was to think of Her again.

To remember how she felt straddling his hips… how her delicate lips moved close to his… how she laughed breathlessly as his fingers traced her skin…

And then it makes him think how she'll never do that again… and the pain feels like he can't take it!

.

.

.

It's her… in the hands of the snatchers at his home.

Her eyes looking determined to him.

He wants to ask how stupid they are, getting caught like that!

He wants to rip the snatcher holding her to pieces and send her running back to the forest.

But his father is demanding him to identify them.

And what can he do, surrounded by all these Death Eaters?

So, he nods hesitantly.

.

.

.

It's her… she's screaming on the floor of their drawing room… and he can do nothing to help her!

If he so much as moves, she'll be dead… he'll be dead… and his parents would be dead in a blink of an eye.

It's not her… he tries to think… she isn't the girl… she's a different version… it's not her!

But it is her… from the bushy hair to the form of her body… it's her… and with every scream, he feels like he might die.

.

.

.

It's her again… her brown eyes looking at him in the Room of Requirement.

Her hair wet and clothes torn.

But it's Potter whose asking him questions… Potter who drags him up to his broom and flies them out of the burning room.

And the whole time he tries to make sure Weasley is still behind them because that's where she is too.

He has to make sure she gets out alive! Even if it's the last thing he does!

.

.

.

It's her eyes that follow him out of the Great hall… as he and his mother walk out of the war.

It's her who stands in the trial and defends him because he was just a boy.

It's her…

And it's not.

She's not the girl in his memories… she is… but isn't… she'll never know how much he loved her.

She'll never know… what she did to him… She'll never know him like the girl in his memories did.

.

.

.

With the war gone and his house arrest on, he has time to look for answers.

Because he'll never have peace if he doesn't figure out what happened to him.

What was this vivid year long dream that produced the vial of memories? He's sure it was real! But how could it be real just for him?

Nothing adds up.

Nothing he finds makes sense… nothing explains why he remembers events, that seemingly never happened.

Researching is the only time he feels even remotely alive… other times he goes around his days like a well-programmed machine.

What's the point of living?

Sometimes he thinks of going to her… the version of her that still exists... and telling her everything!

But when he thinks about what he should say… it sounds like he's a mad man!

She gets engaged with Weasley… he stares at their picture in the Prophet.

Rips the page out and tears it to pieces.

It should be him next to her!

He knows her as no one else does! He knows what she's like with all her walls down.

Weasley will never understand her as he does!

She shouldn't be with Weasley! She should be with him!

He belonged to her! And her to him!

No, she didn't… this is not the same girl…

This girl doesn't know him… and he doesn't know her…

.

.

.

As part of his punishment, he needs to do community service for the ministry.

That means running errands for the Department of Law.

It's fine… mostly… keeps his mind off things… allows him to do something without putting his mind to it.

But that's when he finds about the timeline experiments!

Rumor in the cafeteria has it, that they're sending human consciousness to alternative timelines to study them.

He listens… and it feels like puzzle pieces click together.

Alternative timeline… could it be that, what happened to him?

But… how does it work?

How can he have these memories of it and she doesn't?

Could he have bee there alone?

If she was just a product of a test?

After that, he reads everything there is to read about alternative timelines… about time loops and mistakes in time.

The more he reads the more certain he is, that's what happened to him!

They spent their sixth year in an alternate timeline… then he got back, but somehow still had all those memories…

And her… was she real at all… or was she left behind?

Nothing adds up with the dreams of the tropic though… not before he gets a real job in the ministry and gets his hands to the rapport of the timeline experiments.

The beach is an in-between space when transferring from one timeline to another.

It all makes much more sense now! And the moment the Department of Mysteries starts to seek for volunteers he applies.

But it's not like he wanted it to be.

He gets sent to different timeliness… spends hours or days in there and then gets back none the wiser.

She's still not there… no timeline reminds him of their silent castle.

And there's no way he's going to ask about it from anyone! Because who knows what they'd do, if they knew, he knows where he's going.

The more time goes by the more worried he gets… what if it takes years or even decades to find the timeline he's searching for?

What if he's eighty before he finds her again?

He walks in the street in the rain thinking that he can't live that long… this can't go on that long.

There has to be a way!

And there is… it catches his eyes the next week: They're searching for more volunteers… and this is his chance to get her to join the experiment!

With shaking hands, he knocks to her office door.

She turns her eyes to him as he enters.

This whole time… all these years, he thought she's not the same girl… but now, as he looks at her, he knows he's been fooling himself…

She's exactly the same girl… taking away the memories… won't take away who she is…

She's the girl he loves… the girl he misses, so badly it feels like missing a limb… The girl he'd wait for thousand years…

The girl behind the desk looking at him… it's his girl!

And soon she'll know it too!


	16. Chapter 16

She's running… through the corridors of the Ministry… and the only thought in her head is him.

She needs to get to him!

All else can wait… all else can disappear for all she cares… but she needs to get to him!

But he's not in his office… not in the cafeteria.

Finally, she's standing in the Atrium… wondering what she should do now.

Her head is still spinning… and it's hard to concentrate on the world around her… hard to think rationally when her yearn to find him is so overflowing.

With no idea what else to do she forces herself to go home.

But the moment she steps into her small apartment…she knows it's not the same anymore…

In just a matter of hours, her whole life has shifted.

It doesn't feel like her life anymore… doesn't feel right anymore.

The furniture, the curtains, the mats and even the pillows on her sofa don't feel like she has picked them for her home.

It's like she has entered an apartment that someone else has made for her… someone who thought they knew her… but didn't… not thoroughly.

She didn't know herself… had no idea what she wanted… what she missed… where she should have been!

Somehow, she seems to always have known something wasn't quite right.

Like when Ron held her… his arms always felt somehow foreign around her… even though he was so familiar.

She chose to ignore the feeling for years… but it never left her alone but nagged in the back of her brain that it wasn't what she needed… not entirely.

She turns on the shower, hoping it'll clear her wild mind.

But when the spray of water hits her… the flashbacks of him almost make her collapse on the floor.

In her mind… he's so real… so vivid… so alive… so free… and the love she still feels for him… is going to crush her under.

But she left him!

She never bothered to find out about him! Never cared enough!

And he had to go through the war and darkness and trials and accusations… and she did nothing!

How can he ever forgive her that?

Even if it isn't her fault… it's no excuse!

She should have looked closer! Should have cared more!

The tears come without invitation… she's pressing her palms against the cold tiles… crying for all that might have been… but wasn't… everything she should have said and done… but didn't… all that he lost… and had to live through… that she lost… but didn't know.

All the memories… and the feelings they hold…are drowning her under.

.

.

.

Hours later she's sitting on her sofa…sipping wine and staring at the tv screen, that she hasn't bothered to turn on.

She needs to find him… to talk to him… but now that she thinks of it… she has no idea what she should say to him!

For her, this is all new… for him, it has been his life for five years.

Has he moved on?

Given up the hope?

Found someone else?

She tries to memorize what the Prophet has written about him recently… but her mind is too disorganized.

Recently feels like a subjective term.

That's when her doorbell rings… strong and demanding.

And she has no idea how… but she knows it's him!

The moment she stands up with shaking legs… she knows it's him!

It's him!

He's behind her door!

He's here!

She flies to the door faster than she ever remembers moving and yanks it open.

And it really is him.

Really him.

Even though last time she saw him he was years younger.

But the years haven't done him wrong… he's still lean… still tall… his hair is still the same blond and his eyes… his eyes are still those steely grey ones she knows so well.

And he's so familiar!

Like she could read every emotion from his face… and the way he twists his hands.

She wants to cry… because he's really here!

"Hello, Granger." He growls and chills run down her spine.

It's his voice… the same voice that was her only comfort… the only voice beside her own for so long.

She's just staring… not really knowing what to do… how to begin!

"Can we talk inside? I mean… I don't mind standing here, but your neighbors…" he shrugs slightly.

"Sure… come in." She mumbles and moves over so he can move past her.

And now he's in her living room!

Looking at her with puzzled expression… and she's still standing there, by the door, dumb folded… like an idiot.

"Do you… do you want tea?" She asks and wants to punch herself.

But he nods and she runs to the kitchen.

Puts the pot on the stove and leans to the counter to catch her breath.

All she wants to do is to go to him… to wrap her hands around him and stay there… forever if possible.

But she has no idea where he's standing with all of this… and she left him after all… and no matter how short time it feels, it's still been years for him.

The water boils and she returns to the living room… gives him the cup and sits down.

For a moment they stare at their cups… not saying anything.

"I'm sorry." She finally breaths out and he snaps his eyes to look at her.

And then it all comes out.

"I'm sorry I left you! I never meant to… I… I didn't want to leave!" Her voice is desperate and shaking and she needs to take deep breaths to collect herself, "I'm sorry I never… I never looked close enough! I'm sorry I didn't listen! I'm sorry I never bothered to find out! I'm sorry I was so prejudiced and blind and full of myself, that I refused to see! I'm sorry…" Her words fade…

"I'm sorry I left you alone." She whispers, barely audible.

He's shaking his head, looking down to his cup, "You couldn't help it."

"But I promised you! I swore! I should have…" She has no idea what she should have done.

Silence returns.

"I never forgot." He says silently after a while… "We made the vials to keep the memories… and they worked."

"What good it was for either?" She feels the tears behind her lashes.

"Do you think I would have survived through it all if not for this?" He opens his palm and lets the vial she made for him, swing between his fingers.

He still has it… after all… he's still carrying the memories with him.

"I thought I was going crazy, Granger!" His voice grows louder, "If not for this I would have thought someone was messing with my head! But this was real!" He shakes his hand that's holding the necklace, "These were my memories! The girl in these was real! And I promised her… I gave her my word..."

She meets his eyes for the first time… they're dark… sorrowful… and intense.

He called the girl in his memories her… did he not think she was the same person?

"If not for this… I probably would have jumped again… I would never have made it through the war…"

His words feel like knives through her heart.

Because he had no one to comfort him… no one to go to… no one to stand by him.

She would have done anything to be with him… and yet she never was…

"I'm so sorry." She whispers.

"It's not your fault… there's nothing you could have done."

"There should have been something! I should have…" She looks at him fiercely, "I would have done anything! Anything, to be there for you! I would have traded my life…"

"No." He cuts in so hastily she almost splashes her tea.

His face is almost angry now, "Never! Never ever should you have thought saving me was worth your life!"

She has no words…

"Don't even dream it would have been an option!"

It's almost like only the thought of trading her life for his has made him beyond furious.

"After the war. I could have come to you." He says, eyes still storming, "I could have shown you these memories… I could have told you what I knew about you… but I didn't."

"Why?"

"What good it would have done to you? You were happy… you were a hero… you had Weasley and Potter and the whole world open." He pauses, "You had what you deserved already."

"And what about you?" She still feels like crying… but somehow, she knows her tears won't make this any better… so she holds them back the best she can.

He shrugs, "I got what I deserved too."

"No!" It's her turn to furiously stop those thoughts of guilt, "You never had a chance! You deserved so much better! And you know it!"

It was time for him to know how the life he thought was so perfect for her really felt.

"For me, it was never what it seemed! All these years you thought I was happy… everyone thought I was happy… I thought I should be happy… and maybe I was. But there was always something missing! I didn't know what it was… but my life always felt like… like only half there! I had everything I might dream about… a good job… a lovely home… loving fiancée… but I was never as happy as I should have been! There was always something missing!"

She has to fight back the urge to take his hand, "When I was with Ron…"

"Don't want to hear it…" He mutters, but she won't let that stop her.

"When I was with Ron… there was always something… that didn't add up. He should have been my home… I've known and loved him for years… but he wasn't. He felt foreign! Everything that he was… there was always something not quite right. Like there was a hole in my heart that he couldn't fulfill."

He glances at her.

"Then, I couldn't figure out why… but now I know." She whispers.

"I'm not the same I was then…" His words are spoken to the floor… like he won't dare to look at her, "Too much has happened…"

"I know." She tells him… "I'm not either."

They pause… and his eyes meet hers.

That's the moment she knows they're both lying… because yes, they've been through war and horror and darkness… but the people they were in their silent castle… with all their defenses down…

It was him…and it was her… they might have gone through things… lived years… but they're still them.

He stands up the same time she does… and they're standing face to face.

Only the proximity of him feels so familiar... so safe… so calling.

"You came to get me anyway…to volunteer…" She whispers… her voice shaking.

The look on his face turns soft as he lifts his hand to move a stray curl off her face… "I had to."

"I missed you every day." His words are only breath on her face.

And she starts to cry… not able to hold back anymore.

He kisses her… softly and tenderly… different than ever before.

And it's like coming home… like all the puzzle pieces that she has missed suddenly click together.

He's real… and she's real… this is not some weird dream!

This is real.

Real, from the taste of her salty tears to the feel of his hands in her hair.

This is real… and he's hers… for real!

"I love you…" She whispers against his lips, "I love you… I'm sorry… I love you… I'll never leave you alone again. I'll make a thousand memory vials if that's what it takes."

He laughs a little and kisses her harder.

"Let's just agree to stay in one timeline." He tells her running his hands through her hair.

She pushes her nose against his and laughs a little, "I kind of enjoyed the castle when there was only you and me."

"I have a big empty manor." He smirks slightly.

This is definitely still him!

"That'll do."

Anything will do now that she has him!

Anywhere will do as long as she doesn't have to leave him again!

The years in between…the war… the darkness… the loneliness… the desperation… the emptiness and the feeling of not belonging… none of that will matter now that they're together.

They'll work it out! She knows they will!

A long time ago… in their shared silence… she wanted to make sure they'll never forget each other… and in the end… it worked out!

They found each other again...despite the twists and turns of different timelines...

It had to mean they belong together!

* * *

**A/N: Only epilogue left! **

**Thank you so much for everyone who has read, reviewed, followed, favored...or even liked this story! You've made my days brighter! **


	17. Epilogue

**A/N: ****A lot of my readers asked for an epilogue...and I kind of wanted to write it, because I already knew how it would be... But I do agree with some of you that this story was always about these two, and explaining too much wouldn't do the story justice. I was tempted to leave the epilogue out to leave the rest to the readers imagination, but then this came out of my 'pen' ... so here you have it, an epilogue! **

**Hope you find it satisfying! **

**Kisses and endless thank yous for all the support! **

* * *

**EPILOGUE **

Love will conquer.

That's what they tell you in fairy tales.

Well, it's bullshit!

Conquering will need much more than love… so much more!

Because we did have love… more than needed!

And it was still fucking hard!

I can say 'fucking' when the kids are sleeping… can't I?

When we were having our adventure through various timelines, I learned that pureblood wizarding families have one rule over any other: Family stands united.

There was a time I thought that rule was bullshit too… that it made people stand behind decisions they weren't really committed to.

I thought it was that rule that kept Slytherin's apart from everyone else.

I still do… partly… but I don't think it's completely bullshit rule anymore!

Because I became part of that family… and having mine stand united with me… it's one of the best things in the world!

That rule forced Narcissa Malfoy to get to know me… that rule made Blaise Zabini, Theo Nott and Pansy Parkinson see me as something else than a know-it-all mudblood… that rule made them look… made them see… and for that, I'm ever grateful!

Without it… we might have had to fight both sides… again!

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.

.

When we first went to meet Narcissa…I was terrified.

Terrified what she might say… and terrified what her words might do to Draco.

But when we entered, she smiled at me… cold and overly polite, yes… but a smile nevertheless.

Then she looked at her son… and her smile grew so warm, I had no idea she was able to smile so warmly.

Her smile made me think of her sister, Andromeda… and I realized… it's going to be fine!

"So, this is the girl you love?" She asked her son.

And Draco nodded firmly, taking my hand.

That was the moment I knew… for absolute certainty… that I was his family still.

Even now, when we were back in the real world… the promises we made in our time together in silence… wouldn't fade!

He was my family… and I'd stand by him… and we'd do this together!

His certainty was all his mother needed… she turned to me again and then she embraced me.

"Welcome to the family, Hermione."

And that was it!

I thought they were the prejudiced ones… and that was all that was needed!

When I had Narcissa's approval… all else was easy!

Blaise and Theo and Pansy… they had no word over the Malfoy matriarch.

"This is Hermione, my future daughter in law." She'd say… and no one dared to insult me… or question me being there.

And without the doubt between us… That's how they became my friends.

How I… ME! for real!... let Pansy drag me to fashion stores and sample clothes I never even dreamed of wearing.

How I came to appreciate the straightforwardness and sarcasm in their words… how I learned how it was to be surrounded by people who, in private, were brutally honest, but in public stood by each other, no matter what!

And I also realized how the world treated them still.

You'd think four years would be enough for people to let go of the grudges of war… but it wasn't.

Theo, Blaise, and Pansy didn't even have marks, but the way people yelled after them in the streets, might make you think they'd murdered more than one family.

And the shit they gave me when I started to stand with them!

You wouldn't believe how people can turn their backs in mere seconds!

The moment the picture of me and Draco together was plastered in the cover of the Daily Prophet… I turned from a hero to a heretic!

And my friends… the family I knew, before my adventures in time… I wished we had some rule of standing together then!

The only one even willing to listen was Ginny.

She told me she knew what it was like to be brainwashed by Voldemort… she knew how it was when you thought you didn't have a choice.

So, she came with me to meet them.

And for that, I'm ever grateful!

Because with her approval, came Harry too.

And you don't believe how light my soul felt when he finally, FINALLY! Offered his hand for Draco to shake and agreed to "move on".

Ron was a different matter… I knew he'd be… I knew it! And still, it hurt!

But eventually he, too… came around.

Maybe we'd never be friends like we used to be… and maybe he'll never like Draco…and Draco will never like him… but we were okay.

I knew it was partly my fault… I kept the thing between us going, even when I knew it wasn't what I wanted… I agreed to marry him and felt trapped looking at the ring in my finger.

It was never right for him… but then I didn't know… I thought it was my life!

But now, as I think of it… it would have been fair for him to end it sooner than I did.

.

.

.

We never told anyone, how this, me and Draco, came to be.

Never said a word about the other timeline… the experiments and our year together in the silent castle.

Draco never told anyone about his dreams in the deserted beach where he came to meet me on our sixth year.

He did tell though, in on drunken garden party when everyone else had gone home and Harry and Ginny were the only ones left, about going to Dumbledore for help.

It was after Harry had confessed, how Dumbledore walked him to Voldemort like a pig for slaughter… Draco told him, that's what happened to him too.

And I think that was the point Harry and Draco really became friends.

.

.

.

We made our home to one of the Malfoy estates in the moors.

It's a quiet place, with just the wind humming in the grass.

The manor is too big for us… but it reminds me of a castle, so the size doesn't bother me.

And the silence… it never bothers us again.

If anything, our steps echoing in the corridors, make us more alive and freer than anywhere else!

Of course, little by little the silence fades… because the family I dreamed with him… I'll get!

Our three beautiful children fill our days with sunshine… and the manor with light laughter and childish joy.

And silence never returns.

.

.

.

Keeping our extraordinary love story a secret hasn't been so big of a deal… except when it comes to our children.

It makes me sad to think they'll never know how their parents really fell in love.

All we were able to tell them is that we were rivals until we got to know each other.

Despite it's a good lesson: never to judge a book by its cover when you don't know the whole story… but it's not the complete truth!

So, I stored the memories… our memories about the silent timeline… and hid the bottles, so that they'll find them when we're already gone.

The truth will not die with us.

Because what we are… will never die!

* * *

**LYRA MALFOY 2080**

There are love stories we read to children… love stories we make up in our heads when we're teens… love stories we live through…

And then there are my mother and father.

All my life I thought they were made for each other… as long as I can remember, I thought that someday I'll find a love like theirs.

A love where you can be angry… where you can bicker and disagree… a love where the other can make you so angry, you want to tear your hair out… but the love between you never fades… not even a bit.

They were made for each other… and they knew each other better than anyone.

Even when they fought… it never felt real enough… the fight… because they always seemed to know what the other was about.

I think I'll never know anyone, as well as my parents, knew each other… not even myself!

And all my life I thought it was self-made… that they'd just worked harder than any other couple I knew!

But now… as I sit in my mother's study… four months after her death… I realize that what they had, wasn't made in this world.

And maybe it was never even possible for anyone else to find love like theirs.

So, I collect the bottles and take them to my brother and sister to see… so they can tell the story to their children… and their grandchildren.

I'll make sure this story never fades.

Because It's a love story made for fairy tales…

It's destiny at it's best!

_THE END _


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